Qatar closed its airspace for a time with many aircraft diverted from landing in Qatar including two Virgin Australia flights from Sydney and Brisbane which were diverted to Bangalore, India and Muscat, Oman, respectively. Both have since made a delayed arrival to Qatar.
Virgin Australia has confirmed its scheduled services between Sydney and Brisbane and Qatar will go ahead today, with delays.
Virgin Australia’s inaugural flight between Perth and Qatar is scheduled to take off later this week.
The world’s busiest airport in Dubai paused aviation activities briefly but has since resumed operations.
Even before the missile launches overnight, several airlines had paused flights to the Middle Eastern hubs of Qatar and Dubai. Airlines pausing at least some flights include US carriers American Airlines and United Airlines, British Airways and Air Canada, which has suspended its daily flights between Toronto and Dubai until at least August 4.
More recently Air India has suspended all flights to the Middle East, as well as pausing flights to the east coast of North America and to Europe.
Singapore Airlines has also cancelled its flights to and from Dubai until the day after tomorrow.
UAE carrier Emirates, which uses Dubai as its main hub, is continuing to operate more or less as normal with some delays possible due to rerouting and congestion.
According to the latest update on flight operations on Emirates’ website: “After a thorough and careful risk assessment, Emirates will continue to operate flights as scheduled, using flight paths well distanced from conflict areas.”
Meanwhile Etihad, which uses Abu Dhabi in the UAE as its base has flagged some cancelled flights to destinations within the Middle East but has not indicated any change to long-haul services outside of the region.
Qatar Airways has resumed operations at Hamad International Airport in Doha following the reopening of Qatar’s airspace. While quite a number of flights have been cancelled or delayed, the airline appears to be trying to return to operations as normal.
With the Middle East hubs of Qatar, Dubai and Abu Dhabi being a critical connecting airports between Australia and Europe, air travel disruptions in the region can have a significant impact on delegates attempting to cross the world to attend conferences or events in either hemisphere.
A ceasefire between Israel and Iran appears to have begun, lessening the probability of any more immediate attacks by either nation.
