The number of passengers travelling via the Beirut International Airport (BIA) fell by 8.09% y-o-y in the first month of 2024 to 450,650, down from 490,296 passengers in January 2023. This drop in the number of passengers may be attributed to conflicts in the region that raised security concerns among travelers. More specifically, the number of arriving travelers dropped by 4.19% y-o-y to 201,501 with the number of departing travelers decreasing by 10.81% to 248,936 and the number of transit travelers receding by 75.12% to 213. Concurrently, the number of flights saw an annual decline of 14.28% over the concerned period to 3,849. It is worth highlighting in this context that the share of Middle East Airlines (MEA) fell from 44.28% of the total number of flights in January 2023 to 36.58% in January 2024. This is further sketched in the table below:
