Middle East Airspace Diversions/Cancellations

[jrfsp]

https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/qatar-airways-retires-idle-a330s-sends-pilots-rwandair-iran-war-drags-2026-09-25/

Certainly having an impact for the ME3

 

[RooFlyer]

Smarttraveller has just adjusted its advice level for Qatar: and the UAE:

We have lowered our advice for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to 'Level 2: Exercise a high degree of caution'.

Level 3 countries are:

• Bahrain
• Israel
• Jordan
• Kuwait
• Oman
• Saudi Arabia

Must say I’m surprised at Qatar and UAE being above Oman and Jordan.

I’ve changed my forthcoming trip, to transit through Qatar on 1 November, avoiding the US midterm elections on the 3rd.

 

[lovestotravel]

EK still only running 2 daily MEL-DXB services
But yes after Mid-Term elections I'm not holding my breath

 

[jrfsp]

There’s always a political element to the travel advice sadly, the US for instance is always “green” while some European countries are often “yellow”. I know where I feel safer!

Meanwhile in the ME a large explosion has been reported at Riyadh airport and is apparently closed but as usual in the region - no official confirmation.

 

[Saab34]

Apparently an Airbus has been hit on the ground. More to come.

 

[jrfsp]

Apparently an Airbus has been hit on the ground. More to come.

At least one looking at unverified images- not that there will be any official confirmation of the incident of course …..

 

[elanshin]

BBC reporting 1 attack on ABH airport that killed 2 and 28 wounded.

Second attack on RUH with 1 killed and 8 wounded.

 

[OATEK]

Smarttraveller has just adjusted its advice level for Qatar: and the UAE:

We have lowered our advice for Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to 'Level 2: Exercise a high degree of caution'.

Level 3 countries are:

• Bahrain
• Israel
• Jordan
• Kuwait
• Oman
• Saudi Arabia

Must say I’m surprised at Qatar and UAE being above Oman and Jordan.

I’ve changed my forthcoming trip, to transit through Qatar on 1 November, avoiding the US midterm elections on the 3rd.

We are not travelling until March 27, but have decided to resume flights through the UAE and have booked accordingly. None of the fears around flying through UAE came to fruition during our recent trip when we used a backup booking, where we downgraded ourselves from J on EK to PE on SQ, and suffered (physically) accordingly. By resuming our strategy of an Asian transit from a local (Asian) carrier travelling in Y, to a ME carrier travelling in J, we save over $6k over travelling J from AU at Easter. Its a classic risk/reward scenario.