Middle East: The Flying Sheik

MIDDLE EAST

Almost every country in the intensely nationalistic Arab world boasts a government-owned and subsidized airline, which proudly carries the flag but not enough of anything else to pay its way. An exception is tiny Lebanon (pop. 1,500,000), whose air travelers — and its pride — are well served by the Beirut-based, privately owned Middle East Air lines. Only a puddle-jumping outfit with a few aging DC-3s barely a decade ago, Middle East is now the world’s 16th largest line—and the only profit-making airline in the Arab world. Last week it reported record 1963 revenues of $70 million and earnings of more than $1,000,000, figures that make it the most successful Arab aerial enterprise since the flying carpet.

From DC-3 to Concorde. Middle East can also boast of being the world’s only airline to be run by an honest-to-Allah sheik. The man responsible for the line’s rapid and unsubsidized climb is Najib Salim Alamuddin, 55, who inherited the title of sheik from a family long prominent in Lebanon’s Druze sect, an Islamic offshoot founded in the llth century. Educated at the American University of Beirut, suave, sophisticated Sheik Alamuddin was running his own telecommunications company when he was asked to take over Middle East Airlines in 1952.

He quickly saw that shaky MEA could not fly solo, first enlisted the help of Pan American, then of BOAC, and finally of Air France, which got a 30% share of the line last year when Middle East merged with Air Liban. Gradually he built up an organization, trained a staff and carefully picked efficient routes. Today Middle East has a predominantly modern fleet that includes 12 jet and turboprop planes for scheduled routes, six DC-3s and a DC-4 in reserve. Backed by Beirut’s Intra Bank and its shrewd chairman, Yusuf Bedas (who owns a 55% share of the line), Middle East has also ordered two Concorde supersonic transports.

Cognac for Breakfast. The line now covers 12 countries in the Middle East, has also extended its routes beyond the Arab countries to London and Paris, Liberia and the Ivory Coast and east to India and Pakistan. Eventually, Alamuddin hopes, it will become the nucleus of a Pan-Arab airline. It carries 350,000 passengers annually, has helped to push

Lebanon’s tourist influx from 89,000 in 1951 to 400,000 last year. It does a big business in carrying Christian pilgrims to Jerusalem, yearly flies Moslem pilgrims from all over the Middle East to Jeddah, the closest airport to Mecca. Though the Koran forbids liquor, Sheik Alamuddin provides it on most flights. Parched Moslem passengers can often be seen downing Scotch or cognac as soon as the planes take to the air on Middle East’s early-morning flights from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.