I’m always fascinated by new airlines, and it looks like a new airline will be launching shortly in Benghazi, Libya. Let’s take a look at what we know so far about the airline.
In this post:
Berniq Airways, Benghazi’s new airline
Berniq Airways is a new Libyan airline that will be based in Benghazi. The airline was founded in February 2019, and is privately owned, with the Bank of Commerce and Development owning 40% of the company.
The airline was supposed to launch operations in May 2020, but given the current pandemic, they have delayed launch of service. The airline does already have a legitimate office, at least one plane, and flight attendant uniforms, it would appear.
https://twitter.com/LNA2019M/status/1233755159932678144
Berniq Airways fleet
Berniq Airways will initially operate a fleet of three Airbus A320 aircraft. Either these are the most comfortably configured A320s ever, or the airline actually has more than 90-110 seats on these planes. 😉
Berniq Airways destinations
While flights aren’t yet on sale, Berniq Airways’ website suggests that the airline will operate flights to the following destinations:
- Alexandria, Egypt
- Amman, Jordan
- Istanbul, Turkey
- Tunis, Tunisia
Berniq Airways marketing
Berniq Airways promises that service will be “second to none,” and the airline has the motto “but Hillary’s emails!” “we will do things others do but we do them better.” That doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue… they may want to work on that a bit.
Bottom line
I’m not sure I’ll be flying Berniq Airways anytime soon, and for that matter I’m not sure they’ll be flying anytime soon either. But it is cool to see new airlines starting up, and this will be one I’ll keep an eye on over the coming years.
The airline sounds reasonably legitimate to me, even if their website isn’t great. Then again, you never really know nowadays until the inaugural flight takes off.
Thanks for the great post
Im Libyan, and find it stupid for some people here to talk about intern US politics when it has NOTHING to do with such a Civil Aviation news, guys there are other things happening around in the world other than your Elephant donkey fight.
Again Thx UA-NYC for this amazing post and i couldn’t agree more with your comment regarding the motto .
Avoiding the U.S. politics, this is clearly tied into Libyan politics and the current civil war. Benghazi is under the control of the warlord General Haftar, who is trying to overthrow the internationally-recognized government, based in Tripoli. The #LNA in the Twitter account is his self-proclaimed "Libyan National Army"; the #HoR is the loosely allied House of Representatives.
I wouldn't bet on this getting off the ground. Nice slick presentation though.
I have Leptis Magna on my bucket list. I hope visits there become possible again before the bucket.
@John - stop being a conservative snowflake. This isn't Russia, it's okay to criticize the "president" in this country.
Look upthread and you'll see your post attacking HRC (one who served this country far more honorably than Cheeto has) that started all this.
Experienced Traveller - that was a glorious campaign.
@John - respect is earned, it doesn’t come with a position.
They tag LNA on the post and want to fly to Istanbul. This should be fun
@Chris He is the president of our beautiful nation. Show some respect, kid.
@John - you are bringing it onto yourself. If you want to support an idiot like Trump you need a thicker skin.
Hi @Tiffany, are you going to address the ad hominem attacks against me? Frankly its outrageous I keep getting insulted for supporting Trump.
My Father was in the Royal Engineers , part of the 8th Army ( British ) in North Africa during the second world war . The Royal Engineers built the runway at Bengazi I think in 1943 and apparently the current runway in still the same foundations . My Father was then blown up in a Willys Jeep by a landmine and spent a year at a military hospital in Jerusalem recovering and learning how to walk again.
Thank goodness I'm not American and my first thought about this airline was:
"Great, good on them and I wish them the best. Branding looks good and I'd like to try them some time as well, for aviation sake".
Then I looked at the comments and just shake my head. Is everything about politics to you guys? No one cares about your friggin' email saga. Seriously, broaden your horizons.
I am sorry mr Ben .but i think they have agood website with a good appearance and nice colour it is a good job actually .we still waiting a more from them and we wish a good luck to them . keep going Berniq Airways.
Ben,
I'm just one person who loves this site BECAUSE I can post here if I choose to. I dislike (and don't use) DISQUS because Google or some other superior intelligence tracks everything and places it in some place, for some purpose I suppose. I certainly don't need another password/user name combination to remember, and I don't have a working cell phone any more, so I'm deemed a fraud or security risk by may credit...
Ben,
I'm just one person who loves this site BECAUSE I can post here if I choose to. I dislike (and don't use) DISQUS because Google or some other superior intelligence tracks everything and places it in some place, for some purpose I suppose. I certainly don't need another password/user name combination to remember, and I don't have a working cell phone any more, so I'm deemed a fraud or security risk by may credit cards and banks. Just venting a bit...but I vote NO for DISQUS. As it is now, this OMAAT comments section present no problem for me...I just don't read the stuff I am not interested in, and look for anything by the great contributors (Sean comes to mind!). Thanks sincerely for the information in ypur articles.
@ Dr. Stan -- No worries, we won't be switching to Disqus, for all the reasons you mentioned. Thanks for reading and commenting :)
if one checks the spec they put up for "A320s" it would be apparent that the length corresponds to that of an A318. This might answer why it seats so few.
Is it just me, or has Berniq Airways "borrowed" its plane design colors from Hawaiian Airlines?
https://bit.ly/2Z8OkRW
Ha, I saw the title and immediately thought it would be hilarious for them to hire Hilary to do an ad for them. Some people-event associations live on (almost) forever. You know, like Winston Churchill. Or Sarah Palin. Or Baghdad Bob. Or Tonya Harding. Etc.
Politics may be tangentially involved but is of secondary importance to the association.
Well, glad this airline is starting but the timing is horrible, as Avianca Perú shut down last week, and half a dozen airlines have also shut down in the last couple of months. Granted, they were all smaller airlines, but still.
How bad will Avianca Perú's shut down affect the Avianca network as a whole?
Once again, Putin's minions are hard at work again here.
Lucky/Tiffany, you gonna continue to let your blog be used by the fascists to push their agenda? Looks like you have been targeted for their special attention.
@MKLDH - fully agree, but end of the day, if there is any political connection with a post (a la the Tump "airline industry is doing great" one), it's pretty much going to be unavoidable for the next 6 months.
Hey, at least a few of the "hoaxers" have been banned, kudos to OMAAT for that. It's far worse on other blogs I frequent...
The comment sections of the blog just keep getting trashier...
@Lucky For real tho this comment section needs a moderator.
@John
trumpdeathclock . com
^ Keeping count of how many American lives Trump failed to save due to his politicizing of a health crisis.
I was under the impression that unless you held a Libyan passport, one could only access Libya legitimately on a work visa... is there really that much demand to back flights to four different destinations?
@Ben L - I made the exact "OK Boomer" joke to this John person a couple weeks ago :)
"Go smoke some weed" would have been super on-point in 1988 or so...now, when ~2/3 of Americans support it (and growing every single year), it's just lame.
You guys don’t have to agree with every comment made. That’s why it’s a comment section.
“Oh we don’t like a comment so lucky can you please scrub the comments of anything we disagree with?”
I don’t think johns comments are in the right place, but the guy has a right to say what he wants. You don’t have to respond, and unless you’re 12, you can ignore it.
@exolstice, short of comment moderation, if Lucky used disqus for comments then people would at least have the ability to mute chuckleheads as they wish.
@Lucky, why don't you use disqus or some similar commenting system?
This blog could use some moderators for the comments. Just saying. It would make the site so much nicer to visit. Please remove all off topic posts. Thanks.
"smoke some greens, pal" is an extremely OK Boomer phrase
@UA-NYC
More ad hominem attacks. Smoke some greens, pal. Isn't that what you guys do?
@John - not your buddy, piss off and go back to your Deep State hatin', MSM slanderin', Trump worshippin' Reddit threads and leave OMAAT and other travel blogs for those of us who have been reading Lucky for over a decade now
@UA-NYC
Deflection will get you nowhere, buddy.
Interesting blog, now waiting on Sean's thoughts here...
@John - I think you ended up on the wrong site, it's okay, don't blame yourself, Internet is hard...head back to the safe space of the QAnon / OBAMAGATE / Pizzagate threads of Reddit and you'll be much happier
Looks like John is spending his morning getting triggered by a post about a new airline. Very normal-brained guy.
I feel blessed to have been able to go to Libya, and in particular to see Leptis Magna. It’s very hard to imagine it will be possible to return in the foreseeable future.
@John
can we keep campaigning and the war of Dems vs Reps away from this blog please?
UA-NYC, any comments on how great democrats are? Clinton is directly responsible for the loss of life of Americans. Disgraceful.
Berniq Airways : "Our service will be second to none"
Qatar and Emirates : I'm boutta end this whole man's career
On a serious note though, I really love to see these new airlines coming up. Unfortunately, this is NOT the time for a start-up airline (take the case of Starlux, they were barely able to operate flights for a couple of months). Adding fuel to the fire, the missile attacks in Mitiga Airport...
Berniq Airways : "Our service will be second to none"
Qatar and Emirates : I'm boutta end this whole man's career
On a serious note though, I really love to see these new airlines coming up. Unfortunately, this is NOT the time for a start-up airline (take the case of Starlux, they were barely able to operate flights for a couple of months). Adding fuel to the fire, the missile attacks in Mitiga Airport in Tripoli, where two airliners were damaged. (fortunately, no one was on board at the time of the attack on one of the planes and the other aircraft had just completed a repatriation flight from Jeddah, and the missile attack took place when they were disembarking off the aircraft, resulting in some injuries). I hate to say this, but should they launch now, given the on-going pandemic, frequent missile attacks, political instability in Libya, they are soon gonna cease to exist.
I've been reading Viscount Cunningham of Hyndhope's war memoirs, when he was in charge of naval forces at Alexandria, and it's interesting to remember that Benghazi and Tripoli were different centres of power then. Under Gaddafi they were forced to stay in a sort of union, but Benghazi has always had a different power base to Tripolitania and so it makes sense it is rebuilding its own transport infrastructure like this.
You also couldn’t help getting your facts straight. It was Clinton and Loretta Lynch.
I've heard as a promo that the Clinton Foundation is offering one-way tickets to Benghazi with this new airline launch. (Sorry I couldn't help it. I just assumed that's what Susan Rice and Bill discussed on that tarmac).