Airlines begin the climb back

Of all the images broadcast during the Libyan uprising, few encapsulated the chaos of war more than the charred tailfin of an Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A300 – caught in the crossfire as rebel fighters descended on Tripoli International Airport.
Alongside the grave humanitarian toll of the eight-month conflict, Libya’s fledgling civil aviation infrastructure was razed almost beyond recognition.
Just two of Afriqiyah’s aircraft emerged from the war unscathed and sister flag carrier Libyan Airlines fared no better at escaping the carnage.

The older state-owned airline lost one A300 and one Bombardier CRJ900, in addition to suffering gunfire and mortar damage on its remaining seven CRJs and four Airbus A320s.
However, Libyan Airlines CEO Khaled Taynaz says repair work on the fleet is now nearing completion.
“The A300 was completely destroyed. It turned into ash,” Taynaz confirmed. “We have fixed five CRJs with Lufthansa but unfortunately one of them was beyond repair. By the end of March we should have seven CRJs flying to the deserts – we have already signed contracts with the oil companies for them.”
Additional repair work on the A320s has since been completed by Air France Industries KLM Engineering & Maintenance. The MRO firm inked a five-year deal to service those aircraft, as well as two ATR 42s and three yet-to-be-delivered A320s, two of which will arrive this year. Another two Airbus A330s will enter service in 2013, Taynaz said.
With the flag carrier making swift progress in restoring its fleet, the CEO has begun turning his attention to future plans – including a possible CSeries order.
“We had an offer from Bombardier, who said we might replace our current CRJ900s and substitute them with the new CS100 and CS300,” he said. “The holding company [Libyan Afriqiyah Aviation] asked me to make a study, and it’s a very nice aircraft. So I find this a very good offer and a good deal for us. But not before 2015.”
For now, Taynaz insisted, Libyan will focus on restoring its pre-conflict route network and completing its long-awaited merger with Afriqiyah.
In its heyday during the 1970s and early 1980s, Libyan Arab Airlines (LAA), as it was then known, served an array of European cities with its former fleet of Boeing 707s and 727s.
The airline underwent a dramatic contraction following the terrorist bombings of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, and UTA Flight 772 over the Sahara Desert. With the international community holding Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi responsible for those atrocities, United Nations Security Council Resolution 748 imposed heavy sanctions on the country in 1992.
For almost a decade, trade embargos prohibited western aircraft purchases and denied LAA landing or over-flight rights to any international destinations. The airline became a solely domestic operator and it was not until 1999 that a new era of bridge-building allowed LAA to resurrect overseas flights and acquire new Airbus, Bombardier and ATR aircraft.
Though some European cities had re-entered its route network in the years preceding the Arab Spring, Gaddafi’s decision to create a second flag carrier, Afriqiyah, slowed such progress. With the dictator now gone, Taynaz said a wholesale return to Europe is on the cards.
“The first thing we want to do is re-establish our old network, which was stopped during the war,” he confirmed. “Our fleet development plan will see us go to most major European capital cities and then move east towards the Asian continent.”
Popular pre-war routes such as London, Manchester and Paris are top of the list, Taynaz said, followed by other key business destinations like Zurich, Frankfurt and Warsaw.
However, restoring the network will take time. The CEO said connections with Turkey and East Asia must be first developed – facilitating an influx of foreign labour to help re-build the war-torn country – after which time the spotlight will fall on European business centres.
“Economically, Europe will be the most suitable region to build our future network,” Taynaz affirmed. “Of course, that will also work on the political side.”
Others point out that for Libyan to re-claim its former glory, significant investment must be made in the country’s long-neglected airport infrastructure.
Though little can be achieved before a permanent government is in place, there are positive signs coming from the National Transitional Council (NTC). Interim transport minister Yousef El Uheshi has said reviving the country’s transport hubs will be a top priority for the new authorities, raising expectations that a 2007 plan to expand Tripoli Airport will be resurrected this summer.
That blueprint would see the gateway balloon to an annual capacity of 20 million, up from just three million, and yet for now NTC forces do not even have control of the airport. At the time of going to press, it remained in the hands of the Zintan rebel fighters who had expelled Gaddafi's army.
Another priority for the new government will be the merger of Libyan and Afriqiyah. Taynaz was tight-lipped about the process, insisting that the transport ministry will ultimately decide how best to combine the flag carriers. But he confirmed that the new airline will retain the Libyan brand, adding that a study by IATA predicted the merger will take “at least 18 months” to complete.
“It's not an easy task to merge two companies like this,” Taynaz warned. “ Around 18 months is just an estimate. Afriqiyah’s offices all burned during this war, so it’s very difficult.”
With so many challenges on the domestic front, it is little wonder that the NTC was eager to court foreign airlines when its airspace re-opened in October.
Regional carriers Turkish Airlines, EgyptAir and Royal Jordanian were among the first to return, along with Alitalia, the flag carrier of Libya’s former colonial power. Other European airlines have since joined the rush. Lufthansa and Austrian both now serve Tripoli, while British Airways and bmi are due to launch flights by this summer, and KLM later in the year.
The influx of foreign carriers had fuelled concerns the NTC was granting landing rights too hastily, leaving Libyan and Afriqiyah at a competitive handicap due to their fleet repairs. But Taynaz recalled how it was one of the Middle East’s most ambitious airlines, Qatar Airways, which provoked the strongest test of Libya’s weakened aviation sector.
“Qatar approached Libyan Airlines with a big project to make Benghazi a hub for Qatar Airways,” he explained. “They said they intended to help Libyan Airlines become bigger, but under the umbrella of Qatar Airways.
“Of course we couldn’t accept that, because we are an independent country. It’s not good for the Libyan people. We can do it ourselves with our money.”
Rather than surrendering its second hub to a foreign flag carrier, Libyan is instead conceiving a skeleton plan, which will ultimately see it rival the scale of the formidable Gulf carriers. “That is what we are looking forward to,” Taynaz confirmed. “We have the money to be like Qatar Airways eventually.”
With that goal in mind, signing open skies treaties is unlikely to be a priority for the incoming authorities. Afriqiyah CEO Rammah Ettir has spoken about how decades of under-investment will have left the flag carriers at a disadvantage in fully liberalised sectors. Taynaz agreed, saying bilateral agreements will only come once Libyan has re-established its network.
Amid all the talk of hub expansion and competitive regulation, it is easy to forget that Libya remains a long way off restoring peace and stability.  
On-going militia activity was highlighted in dramatic fashion last November when armed men surrounded a TunisAir flight on the tarmac at Tripoli Airport – a stunt designed to exert pressure on the interim authorities. In January, a crude bomb was allegedly found aboard a Libyan plane in Cairo, though the CEO expressed doubts about the authenticity of that report.
Notwithstanding such challenges, the very fact we hear about these incidents bodes well for the country’s democratic aspirations. “This is the new Libya,” Taynaz concluded. “Nothing is hidden.”