On August 15, 2026, a Sundair aircraft touched down at Damascus International Airport on the first scheduled direct flight from Berlin in nearly 14 years, restoring a nonstop link between the German capital region and the Syrian capital that had been severed since the early years of the country’s civil war.
The German leisure carrier’s new Berlin Brandenburg (BER) to Damascus service operates twice weekly, on Tuesdays and Saturdays. It reconnects two capitals separated by more than a decade of conflict, during which Damascus lost almost all of its direct links to European cities, with Moscow among the few exceptions.
The route follows a final air transport agreement signed by Syria and Germany at the Conference Palace in Damascus on July 16, 2026. The bilateral deal cleared the regulatory path for scheduled passenger flights to resume between the two countries after years of suspension.
Sundair, a Germany-based leisure airline that operates a fleet of Airbus A320-family narrowbodies, is positioning itself early in a market that has been effectively closed to European operators for much of the past decade. Establishing a foothold now gives the carrier a head start as demand for travel between Germany and Syria — home to a large Syrian diaspora — recovers.
The Berlin service is only the first step. Sundair has also lined up direct flights between Berlin and Aleppo, Syria’s second city, with that route scheduled to begin on October 1, 2026. The move signals the airline’s intent to build a small network into the country rather than simply test a single city pair.
For Syria, the resumption of scheduled European air links carries both practical and symbolic weight. Direct flights ease diaspora travel, business connections and humanitarian access that for years had to route through third-country hubs. For Sundair, the appeal is a thin but underserved market where early movers can build brand recognition before larger competitors return.
A single-aisle jet is well suited to the sector, offering enough range for the roughly four-to-five-hour flight while keeping capacity modest as demand rebuilds. Whether the twice-weekly frequency grows will depend on how quickly traffic between the two countries returns to pre-war levels.
Sources: Arab News, Aviation24. Featured image: AI-generated by AviationShop. By Elena Vargas.
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