This article from NYTimes.com has been sent to you by psa188@xxxxxxxxx /-------------------- advertisement -----------------------\ Explore more of Starbucks at Starbucks.com. http://www.starbucks.com/default.asp?ci=1015 \----------------------------------------------------------/ Seven Airlines Get Clearance for Flights to South Iraq August 14, 2003 By EDWARD WONG Travelers looking to kick back on a hot stretch of sand could soon be applying their sunscreen in southern Iraq. American administrators in Iraq have given seven foreign airlines permission to fly into the southern city of Basra once that airport reopens, a spokesman for British Airways, the largest of the companies chosen, said yesterday. British Airways also said yesterday that it was suspending flights indefinitely to Saudi Arabia, after having received warnings from British officials of a possible terrorist threat in that country. The airline's announcement comes as the American government is expressing increasing concern over the possibility of terrorists using portable surface-to-air missiles to shoot down a commercial jetliner. Intelligence officials said that 10 people were arrested on Sunday after a shootout in Saudi Arabia and that they were part of a cell of Al Qaeda that hoped to attack a British commercial aircraft. In Newark yesterday, a British arms dealer arrested on Tuesday was being held without bail on charges that he tried to sell a Russian-made surface-to-air missile to an undercover American agent posing as a Qaeda operative. Two other men have been charged in the case. The ubiquity of surface-to-air missiles - hundreds are reportedly circulating on black markets worldwide, and intelligence agencies say Al Qaeda has dozens - has not deterred the world's airlines from lobbying to start service to Iraq. More than 20 companies applied in July to the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American-led administrative body based in Baghdad, to fly into the capital of Iraq. Because of continuing guerrilla warfare in Baghdad - with at least two recent attacks on military transport planes using surface-to-air missiles - administrators have decided to open Basra first to international flights. There is no definite timetable set for the reopening of the airport, but people in the airline industry say service could start within a couple of weeks. Six of the seven selected airlines - Emirates, Royal Jordanian, Gulf Air, Qatar Airways, SAS Scandinavian Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines - will be first to start flights, and British Airways will begin service at a later time. Andre Laborde, a spokesman for the provisional authority, said yesterday that he was not immediately aware of permission being given to the airlines. The Basra airport can accommodate only one daily flight initially because of renovations, and a schedule has been worked out for who will fly in on each day. Royal Jordanian will fly on Sundays and Wednesdays between Basra and Amman, Jordan, while five of the other six carriers will fly on one of the other days, said John Lampl, a British Airways spokesman. Though British Airways intends to fly to Basra twice a week from Heathrow via Kuwait with a Boeing 777, the airline will not start service when the airport first opens, Mr. Lampl said. The airline still has to complete its service plan and submit it to the Coalition Provisional Authority, as well as get permission from the Department of Transport in Britain, he added. Warnings from the Department of Transport prompted British Airways to suspend its four weekly flights between Heathrow and both Riyadh and Jidda, in Saudi Arabia. As for Basra, "we want to do it as soon as possible, but at the same time we want to be assured that the airport works and that there's safety and security, and that the airport can handle the aircraft," Mr. Lampl said. Some industry experts said it still seemed too early to try to start service to Iraq, given the daily attacks on American and British soldiers, and on Iraqi and foreign civilians. "Certainly these guys are gutsier than I am," Darryl Jenkins, director of the Aviation Institute at George Washington University, said of the airlines. "I would wait a long time. I would wait for a modicum of order. Maybe they know something I don't know, but it's very, very scary." http://www.nytimes.com/2003/08/14/business/worldbusiness/14AIR.html?ex=1061868771&ei=1&en=a0e9be3948be27aa --------------------------------- Get Home Delivery of The New York Times Newspaper. Imagine reading The New York Times any time & anywhere you like! Leisurely catch up on events & expand your horizons. 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