Beirut Airport Needs Safety Update - Minister

Beirut airport needs at least USD$24 million to address gaps in security, including a new wall and baggage inspection equipment.

Building a new perimeter wall - which will cost USD$1.4 million - is the most urgent priority, Public Works and Transport Minister Ghazi Zeaiter told journalists at the airport while authorities in Cyprus, 200 km (125 miles) away, negotiated a safe end to the hijacking of an EgyptAir flight.

Beirut airport's decaying sea wall, protecting the western runway, is also a key concern and repairing it fully would cost up to USD$54 million, he said.

Zeaiter implied security and safety improvements had not been undertaken because financing approvals have been delayed.

"Today we need rapidly to decide the financing for the airport," he said, adding that if a cabinet meeting on Thursday did not approve financing for the new wall he would directly instruct the contractor to begin work.

Lebanon's security concerns have escalated since the outbreak of war in Syria, which has heightened already strained sectarian relations in the country.

A suicide bomb attack, one of many attacks to have hit Beirut and Tripoli since Syria's conflict began, killed at least 43 people four months ago in southern Beirut, where the airport named after the assassinated Prime Minister Rafik Hariri is located.

Interior Minister Nohad Machnouk has said he is concerned about inadequate safety procedures at the airport. "There are security gaps in Beirut airport which must be plugged," he said last week.

In those comments, he compared Beirut airport security to that at Egypt's Sharm el-Sheikh, where a bomb planted on a Russian passenger plane killed 224 people in October. Zeaiter declined to comment on these remarks.

In spite of his list of concerns, Zeaiter sought to reassure saying "Rafik Hariri International Airport, despite these shortcomings at human or equipment level, is among the most secure airports in the world.".