ITA Airways and Tripoli’s Transport Minister announced that Italy’s ITA Airways resumed its direct flights to Libyan Tripoli on Sunday. ITA was the first major airline from west Europe to do this after a ten-year hiatus caused by the civil war in the country’s north African region.
ITA said that it will operate two direct flights a day from Rome’s Fiumicino to Tripoli Mitiga airport.
In a press release, Andrea Benassi, ITA’s general manager, said:
“We are proud of today’s inaugural direct commercial flight between Tripoli, Libya, and Rome Fiumicino. This flight strengthens commercial and cultural ties, and supports bilateral relations between Italy and Libya.”
Since the civil conflict in 2014, which resulted in two rival administrations – one in the east, and another in the west – following the NATO supported uprising of 2011 that ousted Muammar Gaddafi, several international airlines have halted flights into and from Libya. After the major fighting stopped in 2020, some airlines resumed their flights to Libya. But efforts to end this political crisis have failed. Factions are still staging armed clashes, and they compete for control of economic resources.
The European Union still prohibits Libyan civil Aviation from its airspace. Mohamed al-Shahoubi is the minister of transport for the government of national unification. He said the resumption ITA flight between Tripoli and Rome has confirmed “the security and safety of our airspace as well as the eligibility of Libyan aeroports”.
Shahoubi stated at a ceremony marking arrival of ITA flight in Mitiga that Tripoli was ready “to grant ITA extra transport rights to connect Libyan Airports with other destinations within European Union countries.”
Shahoubi said that Libya looks forward to the return in the first half 2025 of Royal Air Maroc and Qatar Airways, as well as Saudi Airlines.
He added that Tunisia Airlines, Egypt Airlines, Malta Airlines, Turkey Airlines, and Jordan Airlines had already resumed their direct flights to Libya. Ivan Bassato said the Libya route is a strategic link between the countries.
Flights will strengthen “the position of our hub in supporting the connectivity of Africa. A continent that, in 2024, reached a record-breaking level, exceeding the threshold of two million passengers to/from Rome, an increase of 38 per cent from the previous year”.
