Here's your travel horror story for the day: Air France Flight 562 had to make an unexpected stop in Damascus, Syria, and as if unexpectedly landing in a war-torn country isn't alarming enough, the airline then checked if its passengers had enough cash to pay for fuel. Flight 562, as Reuters and the AP report, was headed from Paris to Beirut, Lebanon when it was diverted to Damascus because of "tensions" near Beirut airport. Apparently, Air France thought it safer to land in the war-torn city of Damascus, where you know, a dictator has been waging a civil war against opposition forces for quite some time now. That's when this mess happened: "An Air France spokesman explained Friday that the crew inquired about passenger cash only as a 'precautionary measure' because of the 'very unusual circumstances.'" reports the AP, who explain that the current sanctions against Syria make fuel payments really complicated.  

We would have loved to be there for the announcement, which we imagine went like this, "Hi there, this is Captain So-and-So, our flying altitude will be 35,000 feet sit back, enjoy the ride and ... oh wait, could you please check your wallets in case we have to pay for more fuel?"  Thankfully, 562 got back into the air and into Beirut. "The plane took off for an overnight layover in Cyprus then landed safely in Beirut on Thursday," writes the AP. 

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Alexander Abad-Santos