Airlines Are Avoiding Parts Of Middle East Airspace And Canceling Flights To Israel As Tensions Rise
Airlines are avoiding Iranian and Lebanese airspace and canceling flights to Israel and Lebanon amid growing concerns about a possible conflict in the region after the killings of prominent members of the Hamas and Hezbollah movements this week.
Singapore Airlines told Reuters in a statement that it had stopped flying over Iranian airspace since early Friday and was using alternative routes. The airline said safety was its top priority.
Flight Radar 24 data showed that Taiwan’s EVA Air and China Airlines flights to Amsterdam on Friday appeared to avoid Iranian airspace after the flights had flown over Iran.
OPSGROUP, a membership group that shares aviation risk information, recommended in a bulletin that traffic between Asia and Europe avoid Iranian and Iraqi airspace, a day after sources told Reuters that senior Iranian officials would meet with representatives of Iran’s regional allies in Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen to discuss possible retaliation against Israel.
Many airlines, including U.S. and European ones, have avoided flying over Iran, especially since the missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel in April.
Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the route changes.
Flightradar24 showed that a Singapore Airlines flight bound for London Heathrow early Friday flew to northern Iran via Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan rather than connecting through Iran as it had done the day before.
However, many airlines still flew over Iran on Friday, including Emirates carriers Etihad and Emirates, flydubai, Qatar Airways, and Turkish Airlines.
In the past two days, Air India (AIRID.UL), Lufthansa (LHAG.DE), American Airlines (UAL.O), Delta Air Lines (DAL.N), and Italy’s ITA Airlines announced the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv.
Airlines also canceled and delayed flights to the Lebanese capital of Beirut this week following Saturday’s attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Israel blamed the attack on the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which denied involvement.
On Thursday, Canada warned Canadian aircraft to avoid Lebanese airspace for a month because of the risk to aviation posed by military activity.
Last month, Britain warned pilots of the potential danger of anti-aircraft weapons and military activity in Lebanese airspace. OpsGroup said that if an all-out war broke out in the Middle East, civil aviation could face the threat of drones and missiles flying through air corridors.
There is also the growing risk of GPS spoofing, a phenomenon that is growing in Lebanon and Israel, where both the military and Israel use GPS spoofing. Military signals can trick a plane’s GPS into thinking it’s somewhere it isn’t.
