Middle East Airspace Closures [QF9 to LHR cancelled]

[Daver6]

Reports that QF is suspending the flights for the next few days due to the threat of Iran attacking Israel and wanting to avoid airspace in that area.

BREAKING Qantas cancels direct flights to London Heathrow

Amid tensions between Israel and Iran, Qantas cancels direct flights between Perth and London.

airlive.net

Qantas pauses Perth to London route due to expected Iranian attack on Israel

Airline’s Perth to London flights will now stop over in Singapore to avoid Iranian airspace amid fears Tehran will strike Israel

www.theguardian.com

 

[defurax]

Can't they fly over Saudi Arabia?

 

[jrfsp]

Due to the detour around the hostilities QF9 is cancelled and will operate with a tech stop instead via SIN as QF209.
QF10 is still direct for now.
Be interesting to see how long this lasts and if CDG would be unable to fly direct
The domestic sectors are generally not operating.

 

[Blackadder]

Can't they fly over Saudi Arabia?

Dare say the longer routing would have it out of range to be non stop.

 

[defurax]

I see QF209 SIN-LHR is going via Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to squeeze its way between Afghanistan and Russia. The Saudi Arabia route is similar in distance to going via Iran I believe, probably has to do with flight conditions.

 

[opusman]

And that in event of an emergency landing they'd probably rather avoid landing in Saudi Arabia?

 

[RSVKanga]

<redacted>

At least are people able to purchase flights for just PER-SIN or SIN-LHR? What will happen to CDG and FCO?

 

[RSVKanga]

And that in event of an emergency landing they'd probably rather avoid landing in Saudi Arabia?

I wouldn’t say Saudi Arabia is a hostile country towards the rest of the world compared to places like Iran.

 

[opusman]

PER-FCO just misses Iran by the looks of it

 

[opusman]

Oh actually that's Iraq, lol, so it misses it by quite a lot.

(no my middle-east geography is not very good!)

 

[pangwen]

Oh actually that's Iraq, lol, so it misses it by quite a lot.

(no my middle-east geography is not very good!)

Just humouring the use of the great circle map (noting flights often do not follow it exactly), the OP noted the issue is that Iran may attack Israel. The route map attached appears to go very close to Israel which would be the other party in such an incident.

Edit: modified “over” to “close to”

 

[jb747]

You'd probably want to track Oman, UAE, Saudi, Egypt. Trouble is that if they start slinging SAMs around, too many of those players are indiscriminate. Pity ANZ don't go there via the USA any more.

 

[Daver6]

My guess is the risk they're looking to avoid is this. Iran fire missiles at Israel. Israel (and quite possibly the US) will retaliate with air strikes (amongst other things). Enemy aircraft over Iran will put the Iranian air defences into over drive which increases the risk to them accidentally shooting down a civilian aircraft. We already saw that happen a few years ago when the Iranians had a twitchy trigger finger.

 

[tomlee1986]

My guess is the risk they're looking to avoid is this. Iran fire missiles at Israel. Israel (and quite possibly the US) will retaliate with air strikes (amongst other things). Enemy aircraft over Iran will put the Iranian air defences into over drive which increases the risk to them accidentally shooting down a civilian aircraft. We already saw that happen a few years ago when the Iranians had a twitchy trigger finger.

I hate to say this but according to US - the Iran regime will attack Israel at any time, and civilian aircraft are utterly defenceless from missiles

 

[justinbrett]

civilian aircraft are utterly defenceless from missiles

Well, except El Al.

 

[Daver6]

I hate to say this but according to US - the Iran regime will attack Israel at any time, and civilian aircraft are utterly defenceless from missiles

The point I was making is the risk to aircraft won't be from Iran firing surface to surface missiles at Israel though.

 

[RooFlyer]

My guess is the risk they're looking to avoid is this. Iran fire missiles at Israel. Israel (and quite possibly the US) will retaliate with air strikes (amongst other things). Enemy aircraft over Iran will put the Iranian air defences into over drive which increases the risk to them accidentally shooting down a civilian aircraft. We already saw that happen a few years ago when the Iranians had a twitchy trigger finger.

Meh. This from a TR of mine back in 2015:

I had a late flight on Qatar Airways from Baku to Doha (11pm departure); 2.5 hrs transiting the Caspian Sea and Iran, which the newspapers had just helpfully noted intersected the cruise missile tracks that Russia were firing to Syria (albeit 30,000 ft lower).

 

[RSVKanga]

This is the most profitable route in the QF network. If this issue prolongs for more than a couple of weeks, it’ll be interesting to see if QF is bleeding a few customers to other airlines as it isn’t non-stop anymore.

 

[drron]

Indeed probably will be safer to fly on QR.

 

[Quickstatus]

non-stop anymore.

Only from PER
For the majority of passengers (who fly out of the east coast) it is still a one stop.
SIN is actually preferred by passengers like me.