Beirut International Airport activity remained depressed during the month of April as a result of the recent war which led to widespread infrastructure destruction and a high number of casualties and fatalities. Nevertheless, and despite the fact that major airline companies continued to suspend their flights to Beirut due to regional security tensions, the number of passengers increased by 8.59% in April 2026 to 151,146 from a very low base in March (lowest level since June 2020, i.e. the COVID era), yet came in 74.59% lower year-on-year when compared to April 2025’s reading of 594,846. The ratio of departing to arriving passengers attained 1.09x in April 2026 compared to 1.84x in March, 0.95x in February, and 1.30x in January. More specifically, the number of arriving travelers via the BIA increased by 47.59% m-o-m while dropping by 40.92% y-o-y on an annual basis to 567.98K YTD April 2026, while the number of departing travelers fell by 12.67% m-o-m and by 23.73% y-o-y to 677.33K. The number of transit travelers increased by 350.00% m-o-m and by 486.67% y-o-y to 1,232 when compared to the 210 figure a year earlier. As to the number of flights, the latter saw a monthly decrease of 6.45% and an annual drop of 23.64% in the first four months of the current year to 11,412. It is worth highlighting in this context that the share of Middle East Airlines (MEA) contracted from 51.28% of the total number of flights YTD April 2025 to 51.23% in YTD April 2026, noting that it skyrocketed to 77.52% during the month of April alone (vs 42.51% in February before the eruption of the war) as the national airliner was one of the few carriers that continued to offer flights in and out of Lebanon during the prevailing war. This is further sketched in the section below: