BA, Swiss begin canceling flights to Mideast due to Iraq war fears CAIRO, Egypt (AP) =97 Airlines around the world began canceling flights to= =20 the Middle East on Tuesday as fears of a war in Iraq kept passengers away=20 in droves. British Airways announced it would suspend flights to and from=20 Israel and Kuwait beginning Wednesday and pull its staff from those=20 countries in light of a travel advisory issued by the British Foreign=20 Office. Thai Airways International is suspending flights from Bangkok to=20 Kuwait and Bahrain beginning Thursday. British Airways also has reduced its= =20 London to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, service from twice to once daily but= =20 is continuing to fly to Qatar, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia. "The safety and=20 security of our operation is always our absolute priority and we would not= =20 consider operating any flight unless we were satisfied totally that it was= =20 safe to do so," said Spencer Hanlon, BA's commercial manager in Israel. In August 1990, a BA jumbo jet with nearly 400 passengers and crew on board= =20 was stuck on the tarmac in Kuwait after Iraq invaded. It was many weeks=20 before some of the passengers and crew were able to return home. The plane= =20 was eventually destroyed in fighting during the Gulf War. Swiss International Air Lines said it would drop two of its six weekly=20 connections between Zurich and Cairo starting Thursday due to "lack of=20 demand" it blamed on the situation in the Middle East. It also ramped up=20 its "Task Force Iraq" to be able to assemble more quickly for decisions=20 about whether planes should be flying, a spokesman said. Several=20 international airlines canceled flights to Lebanon on Tuesday "for=20 commercial reasons," said Khaled Saab, chairman of Beirut International=20 Airport. Among the airlines that canceled their flights to Beirut were Bulgarian,=20 which only had two passengers, and Romania's state-run Tarom, which had=20 only six, Saab said. Instead of three flights scheduled from Paris for Air= =20 France and Lebanon's Middle East Airlines, there will be one MEA flight on= =20 Tuesday, he said. Major U.S. airlines announced last week they will make it= =20 easier for passengers to change tickets if the United States goes to war in= =20 Iraq, in hopes of assuring nervous travelers. Air France also said it will= =20 waive some restrictions on ticket exchanges in response to tensions in the= =20 Middle East, and Germany's Lufthansa said the issue was under consideration= =20 Tuesday. Neither had canceled any flights yet. Thai Airways said its contingency plans include changing Thailand-European= =20 flight routes to five alternatives to ensure maximum passenger safety in=20 case of war. The national carrier for Denmark, Norway and Sweden, SAS, has= =20 no flights to the Mideast region and said its flights to Asia avoid the=20 airspace already. Finnair, which flies to Dubai, has not been affected. Italy's national airline Alitalia has not canceled any flights to the=20 Middle East for the time being. Capt. Ahmed El Nadi, chairman and chief=20 executive of EgyptAir, said last week the Egyptian flag carrier was=20 considering cutting flights or merging routes after a seeing a "big=20 cancellation" in tickets from European and Far Eastern flights to Egypt. *************************************************** The owner of Roger's Trinbago Site/TnTisland.com Roj (Roger James) escape email mailto:ejames@xxxxxxxxx Trinbago site: www.tntisland.com Carib Brass Ctn site www.tntisland.com/caribbeanbrassconnection/ Steel Expressions www.mts.net/~ejames/se/ Site of the Week: http://www.thehummingbirdonline.com TnT Webdirectory: http://search.co.tt *********************************************************