For more than four decades, the skies between the United States and Lebanon have lacked direct commercial air connections, a decades-long restriction born from the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 that left a U.S. Navy diver dead during a 17-day hostage standoff.
This suspension has outlived nearly every major shift in Lebanon’s modern history: it survived the end of the country’s 15-year civil war, multiple rounds of political normalization efforts between Washington and Beirut, and the explosive growth of large, vibrant Lebanese diaspora communities across Canada and the United States. Today, that long-locked door may finally be creaking open.
Shortly after Lebanese President Joseph Aoun completed a high-profile visit to the White House this week, former U.S. President Donald Trump announced he had directed his administration to greenlight U.S. carriers to resume direct flights to Lebanon — a first since the Reagan administration first grounded the routes in 1985.
“After meeting with the President of Lebanon, Joseph Aoun, who has done a remarkable job working to transform his Country, I am hereby directing my Administration to allow all U.S. airline carriers to fly directly to Lebanon so that Americans can easily visit this beautiful land,” Trump posted on his social platform Truth Social, closing the announcement with a cheerful “Enjoy!”
U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy quickly confirmed the administration’s compliance, responding simply: “You got it, Mr. President.”
The announcement marks one of the clearest, most tangible deliverables from Aoun’s Washington trip, which Lebanese officials framed as a mission to secure visible U.S. backing for the country at a fragile geopolitical moment. Aoun’s visit came as Beirut seeks American support for a U.S.-brokered stability framework with neighboring Israel, and as the Lebanese government works to demonstrate that diplomatic engagement with Washington can deliver concrete, actionable benefits for the Lebanese public.
Despite the major political significance of the announcement, aviation industry leaders have been quick to emphasize that direct flights will not take off immediately. The process of restoring service will require months of technical and diplomatic groundwork first.
Captain Mohammad Aziz, director general of Lebanon’s Civil Aviation Authority, explained the timeline in an interview with Middle East Eye, noting that officials must first assess whether new direct routes are commercially viable and technically feasible. “We need one or two months to conduct a feasibility study,” Aziz said.
Once the study is complete, the next step will be launching formal bilateral negotiations between the two countries’ civil aviation bodies. “The first step after which we can say that this track has entered the practical phase is the formation of negotiating delegations between the two countries to discuss the bilateral agreement,” Aziz told MEE. He added that the 1985 suspension was itself a presidential decision that led to the termination of the original bilateral aviation agreement between the two nations, so a new formal agreement is required to move forward.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration has confirmed it will coordinate with U.S. airlines and other federal agencies to carry out Trump’s directive. Still, for Lebanon, the announcement is already being viewed as a critical initial step toward rolling back one of the longest-running barriers connecting the country to North America’s large Lebanese diaspora.
Aziz pointed out that the global aviation landscape looks drastically different today than it did in 1985, when Lebanon’s national carrier Middle East Airlines operated direct flights to New York, which was then the hub of the U.S. Lebanese community. “Back then, Middle East Airlines used to fly directly to New York, where the largest Lebanese presence was. Today, the circumstances have certainly changed,” he said.
For Lebanese officials, one of the most exciting potential outcomes of the U.S. decision extends beyond a new Beirut-New York route: it could clear the way for direct flights to Canada, which is home to one of the largest Lebanese diaspora communities outside the Middle East. Official counts vary: the Canadian government estimates the community numbers between 200,000 and 400,000 people, while Statistics Canada’s 2021 census recorded 210,605 people identifying as having Lebanese ethnic or cultural origin.
“This step would certainly make possible what Lebanon wants, which is to open a direct route to Canada,” Aziz said. “Lebanon had previously concluded a bilateral agreement with Canada, but it was blocked by the United States. This is something that could be achieved if the American decision takes its course all the way to the end.”
For Lebanese expatriates living across North America, the change would have a deeply personal impact, affecting how often they can return home to visit family and maintain cultural ties to their home country. Marwan Ayan, a Lebanese student studying in Montreal, told MEE he greeted news of the potential resumption with “great enthusiasm.”
“Visiting Lebanon is usually only a yearly plan because of the long commute,” he said. “I am a student, and I can only visit my family when I have a long vacation. If a direct flight opened and I could reach my hometown in less than a day, it would definitely increase my visits, as I am sure it would for thousands of Lebanese living here.”
Currently, nearly all travelers flying from North America to Beirut must route through connecting hubs in Europe, the Gulf, or other regional airports. This requirement adds hours of travel time, pushes up ticket prices, and leaves journeys far more vulnerable to disruption — especially during periods of conflict or instability across the Middle East.
If direct flights are ultimately launched, analysts say the move could provide a meaningful boost to Lebanon’s struggling tourism sector, increase the flow of remittances (a critical lifeline for the country’s economy), and strengthen connections between the state and its far-flung diaspora, which remains central to Lebanon’s social and financial stability.
Even so, the path forward remains uncertain. Restoring full service requires completing new legal agreements between civil aviation authorities, conducting thorough security assessments, securing buy-in from commercial airlines, and finalizing route planning. Lebanese officials also acknowledge that the commercial case for direct routes today is very different from it was in the 1980s, when the Beirut-New York route served a different travel market and a different geographic distribution of the Lebanese diaspora.
For now, Trump’s announcement has reopened a door that has remained closed since 1985. Whether it will ultimately lead to regularly scheduled direct flights will depend on the success of the technical, commercial, and political work that lies ahead.
