Travel

Major airlines including BA reroute flights through Iran airspace as US issues flight ban


Flights which pass through Iranian airspace are to be rerouted by multiple airlines after the Revolutionary Guard shot down a US military surveillance drone yesterday. American President Donald Trump tweeted after the shooting of the unmanned RQ-4A Global Hawk: “Iran made a very big mistake!” The Persian Gulf is a very important region for global air travel and is some to some of the world’s top long-haul carriers. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced the temporary ban in a statement released early on Friday morning.

The statement read: “All flight operations in the overwater area of the Tehran flight information region above the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman are prohibited until further notice due to heightened military activities and political tensions in the region.”

The FAA announcement added the tensions posed an “inadvertent risk” to US civil aviation operations. 

Yesterday, United Airlines announced it had suspended flights from New Jersey’s Newark airport to Mumbai, India which was routed through Iranian airspace following a safety review.

American Airlines and Delta Airlines said they did not fly over Iran, reported US news site CNBC.

Australian flag carrier Qantas has also announced it would be avoiding the region and reroute its London flights to avoid the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

Dutch carrier KLM also revealed it would be steering clear of the strait.

It released a statement on its website today saying: “Safety is the top priority for KLM.

“We closely follow all developments that may be related to the safety of airspace 24/7 and we organise the operation in such a way that the safety of the flights is guaranteed.

“The incident with the drone is reason not to fly over the Strait of Hormuz for the time being. This is a precautionary measure.”

Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Germany’s Lufthansa and British Airways have also said they were re-routing flights to avoid the area, according to Reuters.

Confirming this, a BA spokeswoman told Express.co.uk: “Our safety and security team are constantly liaising with authorities around the world as part of their comprehensive risk assessment into every route we operate.”

The US barring could further endanger the bottom lines of Gulf long-haul carriers.

These have already faced challenges following Trump’s travel bans targeting a group of predominantly Muslim countries, as well as an earlier ban on laptops in plane cabins for Middle East carriers.

Abu Dhabi-based long-haul carrier Etihad said it had “contingency plans” in place but did not go into further detail.

“The threat of a civil aircraft shoot-down in southern Iran is real,” warned OPSGROUP, a company that provides guidance to global airlines.

The company added that the Iranian weapons system that shot down the drone was comparable to the Russian Buk system used in the 2014 Malaysian Airlines incident in Ukraine.

Additional reporting by Jon Gambrell, Associated Press.



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