The struggling Lebanese Armed Forces have concocted an unusual way to boost revenue: offering tourists helicopter rides.
The Lebanese army announced its plan this week, with the first tours set for Thursday. Tourists are required to fill out a form — offered in Arabic, English, or French — on the army’s website specifying how many will take the trip (up to three people) and which part of Lebanon they would like to see.
A Lebanese military source told Agence France-Press the goal of the project is “to encourage Lebanese tourism in a new way, in addition to supporting the air force.”
Flights in the military’s Robinson R44 Raven helicopters are 15 minutes long at $150 per trip.
The program is the most recent in a string of increasingly desperate moves from a country ravaged by an economic and financial crisis so severe the World Bank says it is “likely to rank in the top 10, possibly top 3, most severe crises episodes globally since the mid-nineteenth century.”
The Lebanese army, an institution of prestige and unity since the conclusion of Lebanon’s bloody decadeslong civil war in 1990, has found itself in danger of complete disintegration, according to Bilal Saab, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute writing for Foreign Policy. The collapse of the Lebanese currency, the Lebanese Pound, obliterated soldiers’ pay, which was cut to under 1/10 of what it was pre-crisis, according to Arab News.
The army has resorted to other measures to make ends meet, including cutting meat from the soldiers’ diets. One young soldier who quit the force told the Associated Press, “Morale is below the ground.”
The United States, which has long backed Lebanon’s armed forces, pledged to increase aid to the struggling military over concerns it could be co-opted by Russia or Iran while in a state of weakness or witness the return of al Qaeda or ISIS, according to Saab.
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The economic crisis began in October 2019, the result of decadeslong mismanagement and corruption by the country’s elites, according to the Associated Press.
The World Bank claims the economic contraction in Lebanon is usually reserved for nations embroiled in war. Severe shortages combined with deteriorating living conditions have resulted in rising crime and unrest. To make matters worse, Lebanon has been without a functioning government since the entire Cabinet of Prime Minister Diab resigned following the catastrophic explosion in Beirut last year.
