Eurasia Press & News
“NO DEPARTURES AND ARR DUE AIRSPACE RESTRICTION UNTIL FURTHER ADVISE”
This was the message received at 3.30 pm GMT on Monday via ACARS (satellite messaging) by hundreds of airliners in the vicinity of Qatari airspace.
Speculation had mounted since 12.20 pm GMT when a NOTAM announced that Al Udeid Air Base was closed for eight hours. What followed was unprecedented: the closure of Qatar’s entire airspace, sparked by a barrage of Iranian missiles targeting the US air base.
In the early hours of 24 June, flights resumed from Doha’s Hamad International Airport with Saudi Arabia’s Flynas operating the first take-off, bound for Jeddah.
But ripple effects continue to be felt by the industry, with Qantas passengers onboard flight QF33 to Paris enduring a 15-hour flight to nowhere, with the aircraft returning to Perth due to the disruption and associated congestion en route.
Air India, meanwhile, has ceased all operations to the region, as well as to and from the East Coast of North America and Europe, until further notice.
Despite US President Donald J Trump’s announcement of a ceasefire between Israel and Iran, Iranian and Iraqi airspace remains closed, and air traffic movements in Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria remain eerily quiet.
Since 13 June, both Israel and Iran have been keeping their cards close to their chests.
Israel Airports Authority continues to geoblock access to its website that hosts the arrival and departure information for its civilian airports, and ahead of last week’s communications blackout in Iran, phone lines to multiple Iranian air carriers and Iran’s Civil Aviation Authority had been intercepted.
Such numbers were instead being answered by an automated AI English voice repeatedly stating “hello, what’s your name?”
On 18 June, Israel commenced Operation Safe Return, the start of multiple repatriation flights to and from Ben Gurion Airport’s Terminal 3, though all traditional scheduled flights remain suspended.
Markedly, all Israeli-operated outbound flights have been limited to 50 passengers per flight, with Israel’s Transport Minister Miri Regev stating, “we need to limit the number of passengers on planes on the tarmac during this challenging period when the airport can be a target.”
Presumably, such measures have also been implemented to reduce the risk of potential hijackings.
Videos posted by passengers on social media documented the presence of at least nine Israeli civilian aircraft parked at Cyprus’s main international airport as the war began.
When contacted by The New Arab, spokespersons for Larnaca Airport refused to confirm the extent of Israeli aircraft still stored at the airport, nor how long they have been approved to be parked on the taxiway, only remarking that Larnaca “always has capacity”.
The New Arab has since independently verified that several of these aircraft have re-positioned to European destinations within El Al’s route network, either to operate repatriation flights or in preparation for the recommencement of regular scheduled services in due course.
El Al is uniquely positioned globally, given that its civilian fleet is reportedly equipped with missile defence systems.
The economic devastation caused by this conflict has yet to be computed, but historical analytics provide context to the true impact of this crisis.
Before the closure of Iranian and Israeli airspace on 13 June, Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion International Airport averaged more than 417 aircraft movements per day and Tehran’s Imam Khomeini International Airport more than 128.
Airlines – Airports – Iran-Israel
Whilst Iranian and Israeli airports lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in landing and handling fees daily, the economic pain of this war is already being felt across the region.
Amer Abdul-Jabbar of Iraq’s parliamentary transport committee has revealed that “more than 500 aircraft used to pass through Iraqi airspace daily before the outbreak of the war”.
As a result, the closure of its airspace has tanked Iraq’s aviation income, impacting the government’s “monthly revenues amounted to several million dollars”.
Worldwide, states charge air navigation charges, essentially tolls for civilian aircraft transiting their airspace, with the charges typically based upon each aircraft’s maximum take-off weight and the distance travelled within a state’s territory.
Iran is deeply disadvantaged by the closure. Significant operators of the world’s largest civilian airliner, the Airbus A380, including Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, and Singapore Airlines, operate multiple daily flights that have traditionally transited Iranian airspace, costing at least $2,300 per aircraft.
Whilst Iran does not publicly publish its revenues, based upon Iraq’s revenue data and Iran’s known charges, it is plausible that Iran is losing a minimum of more than $250,000 per day in air navigation charges alone.
Beyond the immediate inconvenience for passengers of flight cancellations and longer flight durations (with flights linking Beirut to destinations east of Lebanon up to 55 minutes longer), an eventual cost increase is inevitable if oil prices continue to rise.
The global average jet fuel price, for example, rose 12.9% at the end of last week, as reported by IATA’s Jet Fuel Price Monitor.
With Iranian and Iraqi airspace closed, an area equivalent to the size of Western Europe, Egyptian and Saudi airspace have provided a lifeline for transiting traffic.
Risk-averse Royal Brunei have long routed their flights to and from London (via Dubai) via such an alternative routing, but for hundreds of flights airborne as this conflict developed, re-routing via Egypt became a necessity and is the new norm.
Egyptian air traffic controller Kareem Mostafa claims Cairo FIR has long been preparing for an increase in air movements.
“This was not just a moment of crisis – it was a moment of national achievement. This was more than a technical challenge. It was a powerful reminder of Egypt’s strategic role in regional and international air navigation,” he told The New Arab.
“It also highlighted years of investment in human capital, infrastructure, and inter-agency coordination.”
A claim with validity as, in the hours that followed, the skies over Egypt became one of the busiest corridors in the region, providing safe refuge for civilian airliners.
War and civil aviation chaos
History documents that the threat of military activity in the region can have devastating impacts.
In 1988, during the First Gulf War, 290 passengers and crew were murdered when Iran Air Flight 655 was shot down by two surface-to-air missiles fired by the USS Vincennes whilst en route from Bandar Abbas to Dubai.
Thirty-seven years on from such a tragedy, the risk of further incidents remains, with endemic GPS jamming and aircraft radar spoofing active in the region.
Last week, Luxembourg-based Cargolux was forced to issue a statement clarifying that their civilian Boeing 747 cargo aircraft en route from Xiamen, China to Luxembourg did not transit through closed Iranian despite public flight radar data suggesting otherwise.
Whilst the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued an alert recommending air operators not to operate in Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan and Lebanon, some air carriers have remained undeterred.
Romanian carrier Dan Air made history on 16 June, becoming the first European airline, post 2011, to commence scheduled passenger flights to Syria connecting Damascus with Bucharest.
Though, notably, the inaugural service which routed over Lebanon was operated by Dan Air’s most senior pilot and Director of Flight Operations, Captain Cristina Preda.
Great anticipation now remains about whether Emirates will be able to proceed with their planned reintroduction of three weekly flights between Dubai and Damascus, scheduled for 16 July.
Israel’s military campaign against Iran has metaphorically barrel bombed the aviation industry, with lasting economic impacts for the MENA region and anticipated disruption to remain for as long as tensions continue.
