As Iran continues to retaliate against the Feb. 28 U.S.-Israeli strike that took down Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, sites across the Middle East continue to be hit.
While rescue flights have been taking off from cities like Muscat and Oman throughout last week, expansive airspace closures and strikes targeting airports in the region have made any attempts at restarting air service challenging. In the early hours of March 11, two drone strikes on Dubai Airport (DUB) injured four people amid similar attacks on Zayed International Airport (AUH) in Abu Dhabi.
Most major international airlines, including Lufthansa, KLM, Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and United, have temporarily canceled service into the Middle East for periods that keep getting extended as the conflict deepens and spreads beyond the initial attack.
Many Middle Eastern routes to not restart “until later this month,” British Airways says
Amid widespread uncertainty around aviation safety, United Kingdom’s British Airways is now saying that its flights to cities like Amman, Bahrain, Doha, Dubai and Tel Aviv will not restart “until later this month.” Service between London Heathrow (LHR) and Abu Dhabi will, meanwhile, not restart “until later this year.”
After running daily rescue flights to London from the Oman capital of Muscat from March 5, British Airways also said that it will stop these for the time being “due to reduced demand” as most travelers who wanted to be evacuated have now made it home.
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“We have limited seats remaining on our repatriation flights from Oman (Muscat) to London Heathrow on 11 and 12 March for customers with an existing booking,” the airline said while adding that it will be “keeping the situation under constant review” to see if more evacuation flights are necessary at a future date.
Airlines promising to restart select commercial routes in March include Delta for its flights between JFK and Tel Aviv and Air France for its routes to Riyadh and Beirut from Paris. Dutch flag carrier KLM also put out an update saying that its flights to Riyadh and Dammam from Amsterdam will not restart until March 12 at the earliest while flights to Dubai will remain canceled throughout the month.
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“This decision has a significant impact on our travelers”: When other airlines are restarting Middle Eastern flights
“Due to ongoing unrest in the Middle East, KLM has decided to cancel all flights to Dubai up to and including March 28,” the airline said in a statement. “We understand that this decision has a significant impact on our travelers and are doing everything possible to keep them well informed. “
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German flag carrier Lufthansa, which also runs an extensive network of flights to the Middle East, is also keeping flights to Amman, Erbil, Dammam, Dubai and Abu Dhabi suspended until March 15 while its flight to Tehran from Frankfurt International (FRA) is currently listed as canceled until April 30.
Flights that Lufthansa subsidiary airlines such as Austrian Airlines, Swiss and Brussels Airlines run to Tel Aviv are also suspended until April 2.
Related: Airlines cancel more flights over geopolitical instability
