This is how MEA announced to its passengers its Airbus A310 order, through the Cedarjet in flight magazine, No4, Winter 1981 Issue.
THE CEDARJET PAGES 
By Wassim Chemaitelli
MEA & THE AIRBUS A310.
MEA's board headed by Asad Nasr declared in 1979 its intention to initiate a fleet modernization program aiming to replace the airline's Boeing 707/720s. The plan involved the puchase of 19 airliners at a cost of 1 billion USD. This deal was by far the biggest a private company ever engaged in Lebanon's history, and was quickly known in the country as "The Deal of the Century". The airline's officials had initially expressed their interest in the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar, however the rising cost of fuel made the airline rule out the three engined aircraft from its list of contenders, which as a result was limited to 2 twin engined airliners : the Boeing 767 and the Airbus A310.
This is how MEA announced to its passengers its Airbus A310 order, through the Cedarjet in flight magazine, No4, Winter 1981 Issue.
In November 1980, having considered that Airbus Industrie made the best offer, MEA's board announced its order of 5 Airbus A310-200 at a cost of 350 million USD, with options on a further 14 airliners of the type. The aircraft were to be equipped with Pratt & Whitney PWJT9D engines. The contract was signed on October 30th 1981, and MEA was to take delivery of its first 2 Airbus A310s in 1984, followed by a further 2 in 1985 and a fifth aircraft in 1986. The "Deal of the Century" was made amidst tremendous pressure, from airliner manufacturers and would be intermediairies. In order to dismiss publicly the intervention of the latter in the airline's decision, MEA resorted to an unusual sealed envelope draw, each envelope containing the final offer made by the aircraft manufacturer. Boeing had made a competitive offer, however as no airline in the Middle East was operating the Boeing 767 at that time, MEA applied the "isolation sanction" on the aircraft, which considerably increased the estimation of the costs involving the purchase of this airliner, and opened the way for the choice of the Airbus A310.
This Airbus Industrie sticker features the livery intended for the Airbus A310s MEA ordered in 1981. Document from George Gayuski's collection.
The first Airbuses intended for MEA occupied positions
number 311 and 320 on the A310 production list, and made their first flight
respectively, as scheduled, in February and August 1984.
But on October 31st 1983, Salim Salaam, MEA's chairman and
successor of Asad Nasr had cancelled the deal with Airbus Industrie. The
huge financial difficulties of MEA, resulting from the volatile situation
in Lebanon were at the center of this decision. The 2 completed Airbus A310s
intended for MEA were stored by Airbus Industrie until mid-1985, then sold
to CAAC, the airline of the People's Republic of China.
MEA was finally able to introduce the Airbus A310 to its
fleet in 1992. Photograph of Konstantin Von Wiedelstaedt.
The hybrid MEA-Lufthansa livery of an Airbus A310 leased in during the Summer of 1993. Copyright Frank Ebeling.
In 1992, some 8 years after MEA missed its first rendez-vous with the Airbus A310, the airline leased 2 Airbus A310s from KLM and a third A310 from Polaris. The Airbus A310 fleet was composed of leased-in aircraft all through the nineties, from various operators including KLM, Lufthansa, Polaris and Singapore Leasing International. The long term lease for 3 Airbus A310s from Singapore Leasing International in 1997, which cost MEA 39 million USD, was very controversial, as the airliners had been clearly overpriced. The deal triggered a huge outcry in Lebanon, and led to the reexamination of the deal and to changes in the airline's board, headed then by Khaled Salaam. What MEA had tried to avoid with sealed envelopes in 1981, intervention of intermediairies and the usual lack of transparency associated with such deals in the Middle East, happened 16 years later for the leasing in of same airliner, the A310, compromising the airline's prestige and image in Lebanon and abroad. Re-establishing MEA as a profit making enterprise, managed with complete transparency is the task undertaken by the airline's current board, formed in 1998 and headed by chairman Mohamed Al Hout.
An MEA Airbus A310-200 featuring the livery adopted in 1997 lands at Paris-Roissy Charles De Gaulle airport. Copyright : Gérard Mouret.
MEA's 3 Airbus A310-200s ( 3B-STI, 3B-STJ, 3B-STK), leased-in
from Singapore Leasing International and affected to high yield routes in
Europe and the Middle East since 1997, were replaced by 3 Airbus A330-200
on lease from ILFC during the summer of 2003.
Return to MEA's fight for survival.