Libyan airline companies deny airspace to be closed

The Libyan state-owned airline has denied that the airspace over the troubled North African country will be closed today.

The Libyan Aviation Facebook page posted the flight schedules for today Monday, as well as Tuesday and Wednesday, while reports on various media outlets and social media sites insisted that the airspace was closed.

Among the flights Buraq Airlines listed for today there are a number of internal flights and another to the Egyptian capital, Cairo. The flights depart from the Mitiga air base outside Tripoli and Al Abraq International Airport in the east.

Meanwhile, the state owned airline, Afriqiyah Airways, denied that the airspace over the western part of Libya would be closed today.

In a statement posted on its Facebook page, Afriqiyah said that Libyan airspace would remain open and flights would continue in and out of Libya to various destinations, except to Europe, until further notice.

Afriqiyah said that it will continue to post schedules of its flights from Mitiga and Abraq on its Facebook page. Today, Afriqiyah is scheduled to fly to Dubai, Cairo, Alexandria and Khartoum while tomorrow the airline will be operating flights to Dubai, Casablanca, Jeddah, Tunisia and Istanbul.

The Libyan airspace is split in two sectors: the east, which is controlled from Benghazi, and the west, managed from Tripoli.

Moreover, the road to Tunisia is open and safe. Yesterday, a Libya Herald journalist was able to hire a car with a driver from a leading international car rental company based in Tripoli and reported that the trip to the Tunisian border was “smooth.”

Car rental companies are providing the service, with the going price for a mid-sized car carrying three passengers set at around €400.

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