I understand that Beirut in those times filled the role rather taken by Dubai nowadays, for being the commercial and aviation centre right across the Middle East. Among other things, I have read of it having Western-standard boarding schools which children of expats attended as a closer option than being sent all the way back home. Aramco seem to have done a lot of work between Saudi and Beirut. They bought some new Fokker F-27s in the mid-1960s for this work. Although a US company, and the aircraft were US-registered, the geographical division between Fokker and Fairchild for where they each marketed the F-27 meant they had to be Fokkers and not US-built Fairchilds.
Colleague at the office had a father who was a Kuwait Airways Comet flight engineer. Notably, in these earlier times the Kuwaiti ops and maintenance centre was not in Kuwait itself but in Beirut, which is where they lived. Almost wholly an expat/ex-RAF operation. Flights would route from London via other European points, through Beirut and Kuwait, thence to Pakistan and India. One crew from London to Beirut, a second took over there through to Bombay. If required, an otherwise through Kuwaiti flight might have an aircraft change at Beirut.
Last edited by WHBM; 6th Mar 2018 at 08:35.