Sanctions Against Syria

The Arab League has approved a set of economic sanctions against Syria in a move that could significantly impact operations into the country. The action is to penalise President Bashar al-Assad's regime for a bloody crackdown on protesters and will leave the country in growing economic isolation in the region. The sanctions include travel bans on high-level regime officials, freezing of their bank accounts, blocking the sale of "nonessential" commodities to Syria, halting transactions with the Syrian central bank and ending financing for all Arab-funded projects in Syria.

At the present time international airlines will continue to serve the country, although flights are expected to be curbed in the coming months due to political pressure. It has emerged in the past couple of hours that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) Civil Aviation authority has already ordered its carriers Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways to suspend flights to Syria from next week, although there has been no formal confirmation from the airlines.

The table below shows the current international schedules from Damascus. There are also direct international flights to other Syrian cities, although these are much less prevalent than to the capital. Alongside the direct flights, other disruption will occur, as many operators fly over Syrian airspace to travel within the region and flights will potentially have to take alternative and much longer paths in the future.