12 July 2019

New route to Beirut

A couple of days ago Ryanair announced that they are opening their first ever route to Beirut, Lebanon.  It's a city that I've been wanting to visit for years, so I thought I'd check out whether it was useful for journeys from the UK.

The route is from Paphos in Cyprus, and opens at the end of October when the winter timetable starts.  They will fly three times a week - a morning departure on Monday, and evening departures on Wednesday and Friday.

This means that if you can get to Paphos on a Friday in time for a 21:20 departure (or 20:30 on a Wednesday), it has potential for a long weekend break.  The Friday fight is scheduled to arrive into Beirut at a fairly civilised 22:25

On the Monday the Ryanair flight departs from Beirut at 12:00 - which is a lot more friendly than most of the flights to western europe, which usually depart around 3am.

For an example as to how it would work, using the weekend of Friday 15th November

dep  London Stansted 09:35
arr  Paphos  16:00

dep  Paphos  21:20
arr  Beirut  22:25

and returning on Monday 18th November

dep  Beirut  12:00
arr  Paphos   13:05

dep Paphos  18:30
arr  London Luton  21:30

The total outbound journey time is just under 11 hours, and inbound 11.5 hours - this compares to direct flights which are scheduled for around 5 to 5.5 hours.  Of course with Ryanair being a "point to point" airline, you have to leave plenty of time for connections.

The price for these flights via Paphos is currently 170 gbp
This compares with prices starting at 255 gbp for direct flights on the same dates

Whilst the saving may not be enough to tempt you, the additional competition into Beirut may encourage other airlines to offer lower fares.