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British Airways, Virgin Atlantic and other airlines are avoiding further Middle East airspace as tensions rise in the region – resulting in longer flight times and potential disrupted journeys. Qantas has dropped its Perth-London nonstop, adding a Singapore refuelling stop because of the extended flight.
Since the Hamas leader, Ismael Haniyeh, was assassinated in the Iranian capital, Tehran, in July, fears have grown of retaliatory strikes against Israel.
Tehran has told international carriers to avoid Iran’s airspace, which is normally used by many aircraft between Asia, the Gulf and Europe.
Four years ago, after Iran attacked US forces in Iraq with missiles. a passenger plane was inadvertently shot down by Iranian military with the loss of 176 lives.
Until this week BA, Virgin and other carriers have been using Iraqi airspace. But on routes to and from destinations in the Gulf and South Asia, pilots are now taking a more southerly route that avoids Iraqi as well as Iranian airspace.
Virgin Atlantic flight VS317 from London Heathrow to Bengaluru in southern India took the usual route on Tuesday, flying over Germany, Austria and the Balkans before tracking Turkey and Iraq to reach the Gulf.
But by Wednesday the same flight flew over France, Italy, Greece, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
A spokesperson for Virgin Atlantic said: “The safety and security of our customers and crew remains our number one priority and along with other European and US airlines we have made the decision to avoid Iraqi airspace.
“We will continue to monitor the situation and adjust our flight routes if necessary.”
Similar route adjustments have been made by British Airways and many other carriers.
The most extreme example of a detour due to the rising tension is Finnair flight AY1982 from Doha to Helsinki. Last week it initially flew directly over Iran and Turkey, detouring west around Ukraine and Belarus.
But this week the Airbus A330 has been flying more or less due west from the Qatari caputal for two hours to Luxor in Egypt before turning north to fly over Cairo and Istanbul. The detour adds up to an hour to the journey time.
Qantas flight QF9, nonstop from Perth in Western Australia to London Heathrow, has been temporarily replaced by QF209 – a one-stop service via Singapore. Slot restrictions at Heathrow mean the plane must retain its existing arrival time of 5.05am, so the departure time has been moved nearly five hours earlier.
The eastbound flight, which benefits from prevailing winds, continues to be nonstop from London to Perth.
The impact of longer flight paths on airlines – and their passengers – is significant.
Besides burning more fuel and increasing engine wear, the longer flight times can jeopardise flight connections. Many European hubs offer transfer times of less than an hour.
Paul Charles, chief executive of The PC Agency travel consultancy, said: “With Russian airspace closed to UK and European carriers wisely rerouting around Iranian and Iraqi airspace, more long-haul flights are taking longer to reach their destinations.
“This pushes up fuel costs for airlines, and keeps planes in the air for longer. It also makes flight planning, and where aircraft should be, more challenging as planners have to research options for flying over different borders.
“There’s one benefit for passengers, however; the extra flight duration enables more time for emails or movies.”
