BEIRUT - The “Lebanon Weekly Monitor” of Bank Audi indicated that Middle East Airlines obtained a 65 million dollar loan from the Lebanese Canadian Bank to take care of 70 to 80% of the price of a new airbus A330-200, included in the fleet expansion plan of the company. The MEA plans to buy nine other planes in 2009 and 2010. All the company’s aircrafts were financed by Lebanese banks, as stated by the President of the company.

On the other hand, the MEA signed a 3 million dollar contract for five years with SITA, a supplier of information and global telecommunication solutions for airlines, in order to implement and maintain the infrastructure of a communication system between 20 of their sites, to assure a better circulation of information and a better data sharing. This project, which should be finished from now till nine months, should connect the general areas of MEA, located in the international airport of Rafic Hariri in Beirut, with 19 other stations, through a secured internet access. According to the information service director of the MEA, this “internet protocol of virtual private network” will improve the efficacy of the MEA commercial programs and reduce the operation costs.

The MEA made a net profit of 60 million dollars in 2007, and is expecting a profit of more than 70 million in 2008, as stated by the company’s President.