Braced for air strikes on Syria, some airlines re-route flights

Some major airlines were re-routing flights Wednesday after Europe’s air traffic control agency warned aircraft flying in the eastern Mediterranean to exercise caution due to possible air strikes into Syria. Eurocontrol said in a notification published on Tuesday afternoon that air-to-ground and cruise missiles could be used over the following 72 hours and there was a possibility of intermittent disruption to radio navigation equipment. US President Donald Trump and Western allies are discussing possible military action to punish Syria’s President Bashar Assad for a suspected poison gas attack on Saturday on a rebel-held town that had long held out against government forces. Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, one of the few to fly directly over Syria, is rerouting those flights temporarily, a Beirut airport source said. A spokeswoman for Air France said the airline had changed some flights paths following the warning, including for Beirut and Tel Aviv flights, while easyJet said it would also re-route flights from Tel Aviv. The Eurocontrol warning on its website did not specify the origin of any potential missile threat. The only commercial flights above Syria as of 0115 GMT on Wednesday were being flown by Syrian Air and Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines, according to flight tracking website FlightRadar24. At other periods later in the day, there were no flights using the airspace.<br/>