German carrier LEAV Aviation is opening a new link to Syria. Starting next week, the airline will launch a Cologne/Bonn (CGN) – Aleppo (ALP) service, adding one of the few scheduled connections between Germany and the northern Syrian city.
The route will be flown with an Airbus A320, operating twice weekly from August 17, 2026. According to the schedule, flight KK472 departs Cologne/Bonn at 07:30 and arrives in Aleppo at 12:30, while the return flight KK473 leaves Aleppo at 13:30 and lands back in Cologne/Bonn at 16:45. The operational schedule varies from September 1, 2026.
The launch adds Aleppo to the growing list of destinations being reconnected to Europe as commercial air links to Syria gradually re-emerge. For the sizeable Syrian community in Germany — and for Cologne/Bonn, one of the country's larger airports — a direct twice-weekly service removes the need for lengthy connections via third countries.
LEAV Aviation operates a modern Airbus A320-family fleet from its German base. A point-to-point service like Cologne–Aleppo plays to the strengths of the single-aisle A320, which offers the range and capacity to serve medium-haul leisure and visiting-friends-and-relatives markets efficiently.
Twice-weekly frequencies are a measured way to open a new and still-developing market. They allow the airline to test demand and build a schedule around it, while keeping a single aircraft productive across other flying on the days in between. The note that the timetable will shift from September 1 suggests LEAV is already fine-tuning the operation around slot availability and seasonal demand.
Routes into Syria remain relatively rare, and each new service is closely watched as an indicator of how quickly the country's aviation links are normalizing. By committing an A320 to a scheduled Cologne–Aleppo rotation, LEAV Aviation is positioning itself early in a market that few European carriers currently serve.
For now, travelers can expect two rotations a week from mid-August, with the airline's published times giving a same-day turnaround in Aleppo before the aircraft returns to Cologne/Bonn in the late afternoon. Whether frequencies grow will depend on how the route performs through the autumn, once the revised September schedule settles in.
Sources: AeroRoutes. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Daniel Okafor.
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