It's Iran-Israel-US war again. Tehran also hits Emirates and Saudi Arabia, it's chaos in skies around the world
Such a thing, in proportions, had happened only last summer, during the so-called '12-Day War.' Europe, [...]
Qatar Airways
ITA Airways
Emirates
El Al
MXP
Qatar
Israel
United Arab Emirates
Saudi Arabia
Such a thing, in proportions, had happened only last summer, during the so-called '12-Day War.' Europe, Africa and America woke up this morning with the entire Gulf and Middle East region in 'breakdown' due to Israeli and American missile strikes on Iran and Tehran's counterattack, which had far greater geographic proportions than could have been expected.
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In fact, the Iranians struck not only the U.S. bases in Qatar and Bahrain, as well as Israel, as could be expected, but the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia as well, sending air transportation across a vast area into a tailspin, hit by severe delays and hundreds of cancellations that affected hundreds of thousands of passengers scattered literally all over the world, given the airline networks that were 'affected' by the events.
In detail, airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Bahrain, Riyadh, Oman and Tel Aviv are operating with hiccups as of this morning at dawn Central European time.
Cirium, the British agency specializing in aviation data and analysis, at 12 noon (also Central European time) issued a 'war bulletin' which is yes, dramatic but less than one might have thought when reading the news of what was happening in the hottest area of the armed confrontation.
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The countries most affected were Israel, where 37% of the flights scheduled between midnight and noon today were canceled, Jordan with the 13% and Qatar With 10%. Just below the Bahrain with the 9% of 'kaput' flights, followed by the United Arab Emirates with the 8.8% and from Oman with the 4%.
In all, of the 3,422 flights scheduled in those hours to and from those eight countries (including Iran and Saudi Arabia), 232 were canceled in the, or nearly 7%. Obviously, as the hours go by, the numbers will worsen, especially if the 'exchanges' between the parties involved in the conflict increase in intensity. As for tomorrow, Cirium reports a slightly improving situation, as far as cancellations are concerned, but it is clear that we are navigating by sight based on the evolution of events on the ground.
Just to mention a few links, Emirates canceled today all of its three flights to Dubai and one of two scheduled flights from Rome. On the latter route, so did ITA Airways. Qatar Airways returned to Malpensa the flight that had taken off for Doha this morning, but gives as 'scheduled' the other two. Same thing from Fiumicino, where the only flight that took off for Doha returned to the Roman airport.
El Al currently gives tonight's flights from Malpensa and Fiumicino scheduled for Tel Aviv, while on the latter route ITA has canceled its entire operation (two flights a day) until at least March 7.
As for Europe, all or most airlines have canceled their outbound flights throughout the region. Many others, not originating in or destined for that area are experiencing even heavy delays due to the complete closure to traffic of the airspace of Iran, Iraq and parts of Saudi Arabia North.
The imperative, for all those who have flights booked to the 'hot' conflict area, but also to destinations in Central Asia and the Far East, is to check their operability and punctuality as much today as tomorrow and in the days to come, since the effect of cancellations (and subsequent reprotections) will be felt for at least several scenarios. That is, if the war scenario does not change from the current (relatively) low-intensity one to a high-intensity one.
