First international flight since al-Assad’s removal lands in Syria
Al Jazeera
Qatar Airways flight lands at Damascus International Airport, carrying nationals returning after years away.
The first international commercial flight since the fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has landed at the Damascus airport.
The Qatar Airways flight landed at Damascus International Airport on Tuesday, greeted by the passengers’ relatives and friends inside a terminal building.
Ashad al-Suleibi, head of Syria’s Air Transport Authority, said Qatar had provided assistance in rehabilitating the airport, which had suffered from years of neglect as well as sustaining damages from periodic Israeli air strikes.
“There was a lot of damage from the [al-Assad] regime to this lively area and this lively airport and also the Aleppo airport,” he said.
Many passengers were Syrian nationals coming back for the first time in more than a decade.
