In another paywalled article in 'The Australian' today, syndicated by 'The Wall Street Journal' also owned by the Murdochs, the author claims:
The strike, the deadliest attack on Saudi Arabia in more than a decade and among the worst direct missile attacks on a civilian airport, left airlines scrambling to divert scores of aircraft and cancel more than 1000 other flights. Other major Saudi airports have also been hit, all but cementing the collapse of one of the two remaining primary air corridors connecting Europe and Asia.
And this extract from the same article:
The attacks prompted a warning from the European Union’s aviation regulator last week about flying through parts of Saudi airspace. The notices follow an Oct. 5 warning from the Houthis that Saudi skies would become a “theatre for the operations of our armed forces.” “The Houthi have made it very clear — both in actions and in messaging — that they are targeting civil aviation,” OpsGroup, an independent aviation safety group, said in an alert on Friday, recommending airlines avoid flights at all altitudes across any part of Saudi airspace.
The warnings over Saudi Arabian skies, which had been regarded as one of the few safe passages through the Middle East, are pushing airlines to scale back flying in what had become one of only two primary corridors left linking Europe and Asia.
Airlines have repeatedly had to alter flight paths to account for global conflicts, with the rapidly shrinking airspace proving painful at a time when jet fuel is trading at about twice the price it was this time last year.
The shifts began in earnest with the closure of Ukrainian skies in early 2022 and Moscow’s subsequent ban on European, US and other carriers using its skies. The closure of a critical corridor over Iraq at the start of the Iran war this year pushed more airlines to fly through Saudi airspace. Increasingly, airlines have been relying on a sliver of airspace passing over Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan to travel between Europe and Asia.
Virgin Atlantic, for example, has been flying its twice-daily route from Mumbai to London via central Asia since late September. The airline previously routed it frequently through Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
That fallback has become congested despite posing its own risks, including the potential for spillover from the Russia-Ukraine war. It typically passes over Afghanistan — which under Taliban rule doesn’t provide active air-traffic control — and skirts active fighting along the Pakistan border.
Carriers often are left with no good options. Air India and Turkish Airlines have shifted some routes so that their aircraft fly along the Saudi-Iraq border further away from threats of Houthi attacks. But those flight paths typically pass near Syria’s capital, Damascus, which is still regarded as a risky zone.
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As at 1200 AEDT on Monday 11, FR24 suggests many aircraft were again flying either north or south of Riyadh (but still in Saudi Arabia) en route from/to the Middle East to or from Europe/UK, while the much more northerly route via Afghanistan was still in significant use for Asia-Europe/UK flights.
