Rising tensions amid Iran’s response to Israel have created air travel chaos, with global airlines diverting or canceling flights on Wednesday and regional airports, including Lebanon, Israel and Kuwait, showing long delays, according to FlightRadar24 data.
Concern over travel disruption as the conflict intensifies also knocked shares in the travel and airline sectors on Wednesday morning.
Iran launched its largest missile attack against Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, triggering a threat from Israel of a “painful response.”
On Wednesday morning, a few flights were seen over Iranian airspace, according to a FlightRadar24 map, including from carrier Flydubai, after Iran said its ballistic missile attack on Israel was over.
However, flights across the entire region were diverted or disrupted with little sign of broader normalization.
Carriers around the world have canceled flights to Israel and Lebanon in the wake of the escalating conflict, with many saying they won’t resume until at least mid-October, depending on the security situation.
British Airways and Air France-KLM said their flight cancellations to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion airport remained in place until early next week, including the first anniversary of Oct. 7.
Airport impact
Traffic over the Istanbul, Cairo and Antalya hubs remained dense as flights continued to avoid parts of Middle Eastern airspace.
A spokesperson for tracking service FlightRadar24 said flights diverted “anywhere they could,” and a snapshot of regional traffic showed flights spreading in wide arcs to the north and south, with many converging on Cairo and Istanbul.
FlightRadar24 said Istanbul and Antalya in southern Türkiye were becoming congested, forcing some airlines to divert south.
On Tuesday, about 80 flights, operated by the likes of Emirates, British Airways, Lufthansa and Qatar Airways and bound for major Middle East hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, were diverted to places such as Cairo and European cities, data showed.
Dubai International Airport reported 85% of its departing flights as delayed, while Beirut’s Rafic Hariri International Airport had 60% of its flights canceled, according to the airline tracker.
At Kuwait International Airport, 67% of arriving flights were delayed.
Meanwhile, flights from Istanbul to Iraq, Iran and Jordan scheduled for Tuesday night and Wednesday have also been canceled due to rising tensions between Iran and Israel and the closure of airspace.
Domestic and international airlines canceled flights from Istanbul and Sabiha Gökçen airports to those destinations following Iran’s airstrike on Israel.
The latest disruptions are expected to deal a further blow to an industry already facing a host of restrictions due to ongoing conflicts, including Israel’s war on Gaza and the Russia-Ukraine war.
