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The airline and tourism industries are scrambling to deal with the fallout from the escalating US and Israeli air war against Iran, while governments have rushed to bring stranded travellers home from the Middle East following the cancellation of more than 20,000 flights over a handful of days.
Major Gulf hubs, including Dubai, the world’s busiest international airport, remained closed or severely restricted for a fourth day on Tuesday, leaving tens of thousands of passengers stranded. According to Flightradar24, some 21,300 flights have been cancelled at seven major airports, including Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, since the strikes started.
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The attacks have upended travel across a growing region that hosts several thriving business hubs and is trying to diversify away from oil-dominated economies. The turmoil also narrows an already slim flight corridor for long-haul flights between Europe and Asia, complicating operations for global air carriers.
Gulf airlines Emirates, flydubai and Etihad have been operating a limited number of flights since Monday, mostly to repatriate stranded passengers, who have rushed to secure seats.
“It’s pretty well the biggest shutdown we’ve seen certainly since the COVID pandemic,” said Paul Charles, CEO of luxury travel consultancy PC Agency, adding that beyond passenger disruption, the cargo impact would run to “billions of dollars”.
‘Depart now’
The United Arab Emirates said 60 flights had taken off, operating in dedicated emergency air corridors. The next phase will be operating more than 80 flights.
The US Department of State, meanwhile, has urged all Americans to leave more than a dozen countries in the region, while other nations have scrambled to arrange repatriation flights for their citizens even as explosions tore through Tehran and Beirut.
But with airspaces closed or restricted across the Gulf, many were not sure what to do.
“They say, ‘Get out’, but how do you expect us to get out when airspaces are closed?” said Odies Turner, a 32-year-old chef from Dallas stuck in Doha, Qatar. “They just have been cancelling every flight. I want to go home.”
US Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Mora Namdar posted on X on Monday that Americans in Iran and Israel – as well as Qatar, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, the Palestinian territory, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen – should “DEPART NOW”, using any available commercial transportation.
The US is securing military and charter flights to evacuate Americans from the Middle East, a State Department official said on X on Tuesday, adding that it was in contact with nearly 3,000 US citizens. The department was under fire from US lawmakers who said the Trump administration should have advised people to leave before the attacks started.
Demand for alternatives to Gulf airlines has surged, with bookings and ticket prices jumping on routes like Hong Kong-London, Reuters checks showed on Tuesday. Should the conflict linger, it could cost the Middle East billions in tourism dollars, analysts estimate.
“We can’t get home, we can’t go back to work, we can’t get the kids back to school,” said Tatiana Leclerc, a French tourist stuck in Thailand, whose flight had been set to go via the Middle East hubs that are a key link between Asia and Europe.
Anita Mendiratta, an international aviation and tourism consultant stuck in Bangkok, said the location of the war would inevitably upend travel and trade.
“Effectively, within the Middle East, an eight-hour flying distance covers two-thirds of the world population,” she said. “When that corridor is blocked, it forces aviation to either move far north, which is going into potentially other conflict airspace, such as Russia, such as Pakistan, or fly south. That puts huge pressure on the airlines.”
In an early sign of thaw, Virgin Atlantic said on Tuesday that it would resume services as scheduled between London’s Heathrow airport and Dubai or Riyadh.
Airline finances under pressure
Shares of air carriers worldwide fell on Tuesday, though US shares pared losses in afternoon trading. The operational and financial effect varies significantly among airlines, said Karen Li, JP Morgan’s head of Asia infrastructure, industrials and transport research.
“There are important differences across carriers, in terms of hedging strategy, air cargo exposure, and network rerouting capabilities, that will shape the actual impact from the Middle East situation,” Li said.
Oil prices have surged amid the widening conflict. Benchmark crude is up roughly 30 percent so far this year, threatening to lift jet fuel costs and squeeze airline profits, as most airlines long ago gave up on hedging their fuel purchase, their second‑largest operating cost behind labour.
In its latest annual filing, Delta Air said every 1-cent increase in the price of jet fuel per gallon added about $40m to its yearly fuel bill; a 10 percent increase would add $1bn to Delta’s 2026 fuel bill, Third Bridge analyst Peter McNally said.
