Capitals, Mar. 1 (SANA) – The ongoing military escalation between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other has triggered severe disruptions in global air travel, with widespread flight cancellations, airspace closures and significant material losses reported across the Middle East.
According to AFP, data from aviation analytics company Cirium showed that more than 1,500 scheduled flights to the Middle East were cancelled on Sunday, representing about 40 percent of the region’s total air traffic.
Several Gulf countries, including the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, temporarily closed their airspace, disrupting operations of major carriers such as Emirates and Qatar Airways and affecting international transit routes linking Europe and Asia.
Aviation industry experts said the sector has not faced a crisis of this scale since the COVID-19 pandemic, with preliminary losses estimated in the hundreds of millions of euros, given that Gulf airlines account for roughly 45 percent of passenger traffic between Europe and Asia.
Tourism officials in France reported that thousands of travelers were stranded at transit hubs across the Gulf region, with efforts underway to organize alternative air bridges through Istanbul to facilitate their return.
The disruption follows large-scale US-Israeli strikes on targets inside Iran on Saturday, including sites in Tehran and other cities. Iran responded with ballistic missiles and drones targeting Israel and several Gulf states as well as Jordan, causing casualties, material damage and prompting multiple countries to shut their airspace amid heightened regional tensions.
