Global air travel begins shaking when the Middle East closes its airspace. Flight schedules go haywire, passengers are left stranded at airports; and airlines try hard to maintain any of their routes operational.
Overall, all the countries experiencing conflict in the Middle East (the US, Israel and Iran) were in the middle of a geopolitical confrontation; however, in a matter of days, it has developed into an absolute disaster for both the airline industry and international travel.
Over 20,000 flights have been cancelled. Upon seeing this initial figure, it seems incomprehensible. However, there are many international airlines that use the Middle East as their hub in between Europe and Asia, so mathematically this would mean they are all impacted as a result of no longer being able to use last month’s flights to connect those destinations.
According to data gathered through various flight tracking services, over 21,300 flight cancellations took place at approximately 7 different cities, with Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi being among the main international airports impacted worldwide.
Dubai International Airport typically operates one of the busiest international airports worldwide; and if operations are affected for even just one day, an immense ripple effect will create tremendous delays for passengers connecting through Dubai all over the world.
Gulf Airports have been shut or seriously limited for four consecutive days. As a result, there are tens of thousands of national and international travelers or passengers who cannot leave the airports/ hotels/on layovers. No one is sure when their travel will continue.
Many airlines are now attempting to undertake rescue operations rather than maintaining regular scheduled operations. Airlines such as Emirates, Flydubai and Etihad have slowly begun limited flight operations back into the Gulf region. However, these flights will be conducted for humanitarian purposes to assist travelers who are unable to leave the region and not for normal commercial purposes (i.e. tourism or business).
Emergency air space; in effect, air corridor operations have been opened by the aviation authorities to permit limited aircraft operations. Approximately 60 flights have flown successfully out of the Gulf through these temporary air corridors, with further operations planned during the next phase of the recovery process.
The current disruption within the aviation sector is likely greater than any announcements made by the Government due to the COVID-19 pandemic; some of the aviation leaders believe that this is the most severe airspace shutdown since the global travel ban occurred during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The suffering is not limited to travelers only but is also being drastically impacted by restrictions on the air transportation industry as a whole. With no alternate routes and long shipping times on items moved through theAir cargo – a type of shipping primarily for goods being sent from one continent to another and are often high-value items like electronics, medical supplies, or urgent shipments, logistics companies have faced delays that have potentially cost them billions of dollars.
Governments around the world have urged their citizens to leave.handing over more than a dozen countries located in the Middle East including Iran, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, and several other Gulf area countries has been issued by the U.S. State Department. There is however one glaring contradiction to these warnings.
With parts of the commercial airspace shut down, travelers have been left with nothing to do but be in an unfamiliar city. An excerpt from a “standby” chef waiting for his flight to return him back to the United States perfectly signifies the frustration within the travel community: The government is issuing evacuation orders; however, the airspace over the distressed area is closed.
Based on new developments occurring with the U.S. government, they have begun to arrange military and charter flights for the evacuation of its citizens. Approximately 3000 contacts have been made by the U.S. military concerning potential evacuation options, but possibly, some members of Congress feel these warnings came too late.
Airlines are facing additional obstacles apart from government evacuations of civilians as they reroute aircraft. Major air corridors shutting down requires that planes cannot just disappear into thin air. They must substitute matters for other routes. Unfortunately, many of these alternative routes do take planes through other sensitive areas such as a large portion of northern Russia plus Pakistan, which make these flights both longer and more expensive to order multiplicatively with the total number of flights as trips grow. This is the complete opposite effect of ticket price structure on the supply side for the industry overall in the mid-long term as they are reducing available services while increasing requests (demand) for those services. Online travel booking services are reporting an increase in both search activity and booking frequency for alternative route travel since obtaining an existing ticket or making an existing booking correlates well with additional consumer activity. Between Hong Kong and London is seeing an increase in demand to circumvent the Middle East outright by all means.
Tourism experts are warning that if the fighting continues, the financial damage to the tourism sector could very easily amount to billions of dollars in total for the region.
Tatiana, a tourist from France currently in Thailand, has had her travel experience turned into a mess by having her travel booking directly impacted by this conflict due to lack of options left for her flight home, which normally would have involved travelling to the Middle East but has had all Middle East travel cancelled or delayed due to the crisis.
Tatiana cannot return to work; her kids cannot return to school; there is no reasonable timetable in place for determining when flights will resume; thus, planning is difficult.
A far-off war far away can very quickly determine if that person can make it home, will miss a scheduled job shiftt, or have to spend several more days in limbo in the other country.
Commercial aviation is designed to be a worldwide, seamless method of travel. However, when a major region closes its airspace, it all unravels unbelievably fast. At this moment the entire global aviation network is experiencing the weight of that pressure.
