Out of the Wastelands And Around the World

Winter-grown green peppers, grapes and watermelons from Lebanon now reach dinner tables in London almost as rapidly as in Beirut. They get to Covent Garden, where the melons fetch 50-c-, v. 8-c- in a Lebanese bazaar, by means of cargo planes and because of the sagacity of a 40-year-old Lebanese with some slick trading talents.

Fourteen years ago, Munir Abu-Haidar founded Trans-Mediterranean Airways as a creaky charter service linking Beirut with neighboring wastelands where oil was being scouted. Today the line flies not only to England and the European Continent, but also to Bombay, Karachi, Tokyo and Taipei. Last year its planes logged 34 million ton-miles, 41% more than the previous year. Last week Abu-Haidar was negotiating for the lease of two 707 jets, with which he hopes to increase his ton-mileage to 50 million.

Friendly Firing. Like much of the modern business in the Middle East, Trans-Med was born because of the oil industry. Abu-Haidar, graduating from the American University of Beirut, decided against a career in medicine, went to work as a junior clerk for the Arabian American Oil Co. He was eventually named head of the transportation department, given the job of providing food and equipment for Aramco crews prospecting along the Persian Gulf. Trucks carrying the supplies either bogged down in the desert or were stopped by tribesmen; ships sometimes went aground. Abu-Haidar decided to switch to airplanes but Aramco, while interested, was unwilling to get too deeply into aviation.

Abu-Haidar solved that by arranging to be fired in friendly fashion. With $600 in severance pay, he flew to London with a letter of intent from Aramco to use his nonexistent air-charter service. With that credential, he arranged the lease of an aging four-engine York, the transport version of England's Lancaster bomber of World War II. Operating out of a one-room office in Beirut, Abu-Haidar was soon getting charter business not only from Aramco but from other oil companies as well. He leased three additional Yorks, manned them with former R.A.F. flyers who knew the region from wartime service. Trans-Med hauled heavy machinery and baby chickens, dynamite and guns. "Weapons to me," says Abu-Haidar today, "are the same as pieces of lumber. A European government charters one of my planes and asks me to haul rifles to Algeria. What do I do, let someone else have the business?"

Sentimental Values. The airline really came into its own when the 1956 war between Israel and the Arabs shut the Suez Canal. With Trans-Med planes available to bridge the gap, revenues quadrupled in one year to $1,200,000. Abu-Haidar used the money to buy more planes. The Lebanese government cooperated by establishing a free-trade zone at the city's international airport, where goods could be warehoused or even partially processed. Business has consistently increased ever since, and the one-room office has given way to magnificent quarters downtown, where Abu-Haidar arrives at 8 each morning after a two-hour gallop on horseback outside the city.

Revenues last year reached $15 million, but Abu-Haidar needs even more money if he is to fulfill his dream of a round-the-world cargo route. The run would include Los Angeles and New York; to get landing rights in those cities, Abu-Haidar would make a trade that would let Pan American bring its all-cargo service into Beirut. "If they don't agree," smiles Abu-Haidar, "there might be a certain delay in Pan Am's plans as far as Beirut is concerned."

Apart from horse-trading between governments, Abu-Haidar hopes that Pan Am might also have a sentimental reason for agreeing to U.S. landing rights for Trans-Med. Four years ago, Susan Leslie, daughter of a Pan Am vice president, met Abu-Haidar during a visit to Beirut. Friendship blossomed. She was even more impressed on a safari to Kenya; Abu-Haidar, on crutches from a skiing accident, nevertheless managed to bring down a rhino. They were married in Scarsdale, N.Y., now live in Beirut with their two children.

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