Several airlines have suspended or cancelled flights in the Middle East and some countries have shut their airspace after Israel launched a wave of air strikes on Iran.
The Israeli attacks targeted military facilities, nuclear sites and residential areas, killing two senior military commanders and nuclear scientists.
Here is a list of suspended and rerouted flights:
- Emirates, the Middle East’s largest airline, said it had cancelled flights to and from Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon and Iran. Several flights scheduled for Friday and one Tehran flight on Saturday were listed as cancelled on the airline’s website.
- Qatar Airways, the country’s national carrier and one of the Middle East’s largest, said it had “temporarily cancelled flights to Iran and Iraq due to (the) current situation in the region”.
- El Al Airlines, an Israeli flag carrier, said it had suspended flights to and from Israel and was moving some of its planes out of the country.
- Israir, a budget Israeli carrier, said it was evacuating its planes from Tel Aviv airport, which it said was expected to remain closed through the weekend.
- Flydubai, or the Dubai Aviation Corporation, a budget carrier, said it had suspended flights to Amman, Beirut, Damascus, Iran and Israel and a number of other flights had been cancelled, rerouted or returned to their departure airports.
- Etihad Airways and Turkish Airlines diverted some flights to Baku, Azerbaijan, according to Heydar Aliyev International Airport.
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Pegasus Airlines, a Turkish carrier, has cancelled its flights to Iran until June 19 and flights to Iraq and Jordan until June 16. The company said in a statement that it will operate flights to Lebanon only during daylight hours.
- Aeroflot, the largest airline in Russia and its flag carrier, has cancelled flights between Moscow and Tehran, and made changes to other routes in the Middle East.
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Lufthansa, the largest airline in Germany, has suspended all flights to and from Tehran. In a statement, the company added that it would also avoid “Iranian, Iraqi and Israeli airspace for now”.
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KLM, a Dutch airline in partnership with Air France, has cancelled all flights to Tel Aviv until at least July 1, reported Dutch news agency ANP.
- LOT Polish Airlines announced it will not be using Iranian airspace for flights to Asia, a spokesperson told state news agency PAP.
- Wizz Air, a Hungarian budget airline, has suspended flights to Tel Aviv and re-routed flights affected by closed airspace in the region for the next 72 hours, it said in a statement through its Cyprus-based publicist.
- Air India, a flag carrier of the subcontinent which overflies Iran for its Europe and North American flights, said several flights were being diverted or returned to their origin, including ones from New York, Vancouver, Chicago and London.
- Aeroflot, Russia’s flagship airline, cancelled flights between Moscow and Tehran. In a statement, the airline said that flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and the Maldives have been rerouted through Pakistani airspace.
Some countries have also closed their airspace following the attacks.
Iran’s official news agency IRNA reported that aviation authorities have shut down the country’s airspace until further notice.
Early on Friday, Iraq closed its airspace and suspended all traffic at its airports, Iraqi state media reported.
Eastern Iraq near the border with Iran contains one of the world’s busiest air corridors, with dozens of flights crossing between Europe and the Gulf, many on routes from Asia to Europe, at any single moment.
Jordan’s civil aviation authority has also said it “temporarily” closed Jordanian airspace to all flights “in anticipation of any dangers resulting from the escalation happening in the region”.
Last year, some Iranian missiles that targeted Israeli military bases flew over Jordan, which neighbours Israel and Iraq.
The post Which airlines paused or cancelled flights after Israel’s attack on Iran? appeared first on Al Jazeera.
