Middle East Airspace Diversions/Cancellations

[elanshin]

Surely Middle Eastern airlines can’t suspend flights for weeks on end without serious financial consequences. Still, the fragile and often unpredictable nature of the region makes me a little uneasy about flying through it.

They don't have a say in that. If a war is active and threatening your airspace, you do not fly commercial aviation outside of real emergencies.

If they resumed flights and theres still missiles in the air watch their reputation get dragged through the mud.

 

[clifford]

I'm booked to go through Doha in 4 weeks, and I'm relaxed. 6 weeks should be fine for you. If the war goes on for more than 2 weeks I'll be amazed but if it does, then I might start asking my travel agent for options. After the war, the ME should be safer than for many years.

You seem to have a benign view of things. I'm booked to fly through AUH on EY in 3 weeks time, and I don't have the good feel that you have.

I don't see the regime - there will be many survivors - being subdued anytime soon, even if their missile coughnal is depleted. I expect they will have an enormous band of followers in various places in the middle east, and if you think that anywhere in that region will be safe, good luck.

If I am given the opportunity to cancel without penalty I'll be doing it. Just my take.

 

[Rembrandt]

Can airlines like Qatar fly via other routes e.g. via central Asia? Obviously it's not something that can be organized on a whim, but just curious..

 

[elanshin]

Can airlines like Qatar fly via other routes e.g. via central Asia? Obviously it's not something that can be organized on a whim, but just curious..

No.

That moves to 5th and higher freedom flights almost all of which usually requires approvals.

 

[RSD]

You seem to have a benign view of things. I'm booked to fly through AUH on EY in 3 weeks time, and I don't have the good feel that you have.

I don't see the regime - there will be many survivors - being subdued anytime soon, even if their missile coughnal is depleted. I expect they will have an enormous band of followers in various places in the middle east, and if you think that anywhere in that region will be safe, good luck.

If I am given the opportunity to cancel without penalty I'll be doing it. Just my take.

I'm like you - I don't see the Middle Eastern airlines being able to fly again in 3 weeks - happy to be wrong but unless Israel and America stop attacking before they achieve their objectives then...

 

[Quickstatus]

Can airlines like Qatar fly via other routes e.g. via central Asia?

Sure and lets say all the rules regarding limiting foreign airlines operating out of another contry are relaxed, their base is DOH. All their Cabin crew/ pilots, infrastructure, services are based there.
Even if they could move to another base - say Singapore, how are they going to move their CC/pilots there when DOH airspace is closed

 

[IrishPete]

I’m heading to Europe in six weeks and have booked Qatar Airways flights using Velocity points. I did my best to find routes to the parts of Europe I’m visiting that didn’t involve transiting through the Middle East, but it just wasn’t possible. Singapore Airlines doesn’t serve many Central and Eastern European destinations, and reward seat availability with them has become increasingly difficult to find.

Surely Middle Eastern airlines can’t suspend flights for weeks on end without serious financial consequences. Still, the fragile and often unpredictable nature of the region makes me a little uneasy about flying through it.

If their hub airport's air space is closed, they don't have a choice. They can't fly airliners full of passengers through drones and missiles flying in many different directions. They can't fly over them, because they have to land.

 

[IrishPete]

I called them and got my SAW-DOH-BNE flight cancelled with all points and taxes refunded and no fees. I pointed out that Qatar has a Do Not Travel warning from the Australian govt and asked to speak to a supervisor. The rep put me on hold, presumable consulted the supervisor and waived the fees. I was lucky and had enough points to book IST-SIN-BNE on SQ with Velocity first to be sure I was still getting home. Points refund was instant, taxes take a few days.

Sorry, can you remind me when your travel is?

We're booked to return to Australia via Doha on Saturday, and I was going to wait and see a bit longer. One of us' flight is Velocity points and the other paid with Qatar. If the airlines are willing to cancel already, maybe I should be looking at alternative ways home already?

 

[moa999]

I'm booked to go through Doha in 4 weeks, and I'm relaxed. 6 weeks should be fine for you. If the war goes on for more than 2 weeks I'll be amazed but if it does, then I might start asking my travel agent for options.

If it goes 2 weeks (and I also doubt it) you might be out of luck.. Not having multiple ME airlines flying is going to cause a massive dislocation of people across the globe. Airlines still flying will be booked solid for weeks.

 

[mrsterryn]

Slightly different, but I wonder how this will affect freight ?

 

[kevviek]

Quite a few award seats from SYD-LHR via USA with UA/QF/AA today and tomorrow ...

We didn’t have enough points, but she got a refund on the Virgin/Qatar flight and is now doing QF/AA via LA on the way over and Air India via Delhi on the way back. Extra $1k.

 

[Melburnian1]

On another tack, for how long will the ME airlines pay their flight deck and cabin crews based in AUH/DXB/DOH?

If some of the cabin crew have only just started and have limited funds, one has to feel sorry for them.

 

[RooFlyer]

You seem to have a benign view of things. I'm booked to fly through AUH on EY in 3 weeks time, and I don't have the good feel that you have.

Yes, I may be oddly relaxed, as I'm usually a worrier. I'm counting on the economic imperative of everyone except Iran to get the thing sorted.

But then in 2015 I happily flew QR north from DOH straight up over Iran to Baku during a time when Iran was firing the odd missile at Israel.

Respectfully, I think your final comment may be wishful thinking. Even if the Iranian regime is replaced with a stable democracy, there'll be a lot more bad blood in the region. Regime change in Iraq didn't solve anything, and just created other problems. Regime change in Afghanistan only lasted until Mr Trump did a deal with The Taliban, that they reneged on.

There's been bad blood in the region since time immemorial. As long as they aren't actually shooting at each other I count it as stable, and even then its rare they somebody isn't shooting or bombing somewhere. I visited Iran on a tour in 2017. Airlines fly over Afghanistan every day and in non-shooty times, into Iraq every day. I flew to Saudi via DOH and back only a couple of weeks ago.

If it goes 2 weeks (and I also doubt it) you might be out of luck.. Not having multiple ME airlines flying is going to cause a massive dislocation of people across the globe. Airlines still flying will be booked solid for weeks.

You def have a point there. I'm giving my Travel Agent this week to sort out the chaos they'll be dealing with now, then get in touch re a plan B to get to Spain, where I am joining a cruise in early April.

 

[Melburnian1]

Slightly different, but I wonder how this will affect freight ?

A good question for @jase05 .

Note that the vast majority of international freight travels by sea or rail/road, but high value items that aren't bulky go by air.

 

[justinbrett]

No.

That moves to 5th and higher freedom flights almost all of which usually requires approvals.

It’s easily done in the context of disruptions - especially if done under the banner of repatriation.

Regulators are generally reasonable and they understand if airlines like EK/QR aren’t flying then corridors like Australia - Europe will grind to a halt. That said the tricky part is getting all the pieces in place to actually conduct the flight. Regulatory approval is easy bit (in comparison).

 

[J-P]

Imagine having to change travel plans urgently because of bombs dropping in the middle east and the Qantas lines are clogged with people wanting to get double status credits

 

[AuSammy]

Sort of off topic, but related since I'm having to sort alternative flights due to the Middle East issue, do you need a US ESTA if you're transiting through a US airport?

Absolutely. A transit through any USA controlled port requires an Esta or Visa.

 

[moa999]

Regulators are generally reasonable and they understand if airlines like EK/QR aren’t flying then corridors like Australia - Europe will grind to a halt

Getting say government approval for EK to base a bunch of flights at say SIN might be easy, but the hard stuff will be things like gate capacity, check-in staff, catering, maintenance.. that stuff just can't be turned on quickly at scale.

 

[justinbrett]

Getting say government approval for EK to base a bunch of flights at say SIN might be easy, but the hard stuff will be things like gate capacity, check-in staff, catering, maintenance.. that stuff just can't be turned on quickly at scale.

That’s what I meant when I said the approval is the easy part.

That said these airlines have ops from these airports, so shouldn’t be too hard to convert (for example) SIN-DXB to SIN-LHR. Slot timing is an issue but with the amount of cancelled flights (thus unused slots) they should be able to get some aircraft moving.

It’s probably a lot easier for the airlines just to cancel and it will be governments that charter flights to get pax moving.

 

[RooFlyer]

Regulators are generally reasonable and they understand if airlines like EK/QR aren’t flying then corridors like Australia - Europe will grind to a halt. That said the tricky part is getting all the pieces in place to actually conduct the flight. Regulatory approval is easy bit (in comparison).

Yeah, I was wondering in the current lead-up, or after the last airspace closure if some of the ME carriers might have worked on contingency plans to operate Aust/Asia to Europe via, say Saudi or Cairo or Istanbul.

Jeddah airport is massive - it caters for the surge of > 1 million pax during the Hajj so should have a lot of capacity.

Of course the airlines would have to get a lot of their craft out of the closed airports and there are are probably other insurmountable logistical issues but if push comes to shove some flow should be possible using aircraft not at the bases.