Airlines have long had to navigate sporadic flare-ups of armed conflict and missile strikes across Middle East skies. The fallout from the latest conflict has reached a new level.
Wide stretches of airspace across a busy global flight corridor have been shut for days. At least 11,000 flights have been canceled, affecting an estimated 1.5 million passengers. And critical airport hubs in the region have been targeted by Iranian missile and drone strikes.
“The situation far surpasses anything we’ve seen in the Middle East previously,” said Matt Borie, chief intelligence officer at aviation risk firm Osprey, citing the vast scale of Iran’s retaliation across the region following last weekend’s broad attacks from Israel and the U.S.
The big question is how long the disruption lasts. Previous flare-ups between Israel and Iran over the last few years have been measured in days. President Trump has indicated the current hostilities could go on for weeks. European aviation safety regulators have told airlines it isn’t safe to fly in the Gulf region until at least Friday.
Airline stocks, including American Airlines, Delta and United, dropped Monday as investors strained to assess the impact of the conflict and an increase in oil prices. Declines for European carriers, which use the Persian Gulf more frequently to connect to cities across Asia, were particularly sharp.
Aside from a surge in the cost of fuel, airlines are weighing the viability of routes that have relied on the Middle East corridor. Rerouting around the region can add hours of flight time, which not only uses more fuel, but also upends tightly managed schedules that account for mandatory crew rest time and expensive airport takeoff and landing slots.
The Gulf itself has rapidly emerged as a major hub for aviation, with the Middle East accounting for nearly 10% of global air traffic last year. Dubai and Doha are now two of the world’s busiest airports for international passengers, driven by the rapid rise of Emirates and Qatar Airways. Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, plans to spend tens of billions of dollars on new aircraft and airport upgrades to muscle its way into the market.
When U.S. and Israeli forces launched the strikes Saturday morning, more than 1,000 aircraft were flying in the region, including scores crossing the crucial air corridor over Iraq. The strikes prompted aircraft to quickly chart new routes in response to airspace bans that followed.
Recordings from Kuwait air-traffic control illustrated the scramble: Pilots unaware of the continuing missile strikes reported being turned away from entering newly shut airspace; others were placed in long holding patterns and told to keep their speed at a minimum to allow room for others; crew that had just taken off radioed that they needed to unload gallons of fuel to make a safe landing.
“We need to dump some fuel, we are too heavy,” the pilot of Kuwait Airways flight 117 to New York radioed to controllers shortly after the first U.S. strikes hit Iran.
At least 265 aircraft diverted or returned to their departure airports Saturday, according to aircraft tracking provider, Flightradar24.
Within hours, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency issued a bulletin telling airlines that airspace across almost the entire Middle East region wasn’t safe. Missiles were crisscrossing the region and civilian planes risked being misidentified as a hostile target, it said.
Since then, Iranian missiles and drones have targeted airports, damaging passenger terminals—including at Dubai and Abu Dhabi, Iraq’s Erbil International Airport and the primary hubs in Kuwait and Bahrain.
“It is critical that states respect their obligation to keep civilians and civil aviation free from harm,” Willie Walsh, the director general of the International Air Transport Association, said in a statement.
Accidental shootings of civilian planes is one of the leading causes of commercial-aviation deaths. An Azerbaijani passenger plane was accidentally downed in late 2024 by Russian forces. The incident was preceded by the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014 and the shooting of Ukrainian Airlines flight PS752 which had been mistaken for an incoming missile by Iranian forces in 2020.
On Monday, three U.S. Air Force F-15s were mistakenly shot down by Kuwaiti air defenses.
Over the weekend, the Gulf’s biggest airlines—from Emirates to Qatar, Abu Dhabi’s Etihad and Flydubai—grounded their operations at their home airports. Meanwhile, U.S. and European carriers including British Airways, Air France and Lufthansa announced a raft of cancellations to the region.
The United Arab Emirates on Monday started allowing a handful of flights to depart primarily to evacuate stranded passengers. Etihad said it was coordinating closely with national authorities to ensure safe operation.
The impact isn’t limited to the Gulf. Air India scrapped a handful of flights to the U.S., Canada and Europe including to New York, Chicago, Toronto and London because of the airspace restrictions. The airline said Monday it was restarting those flights with adjusted routings.
British Airways was among airlines that scrapped flights to Cyprus on Monday after an Iranian strike at a Royal Air Force base on the island. Japan Airlines meanwhile has rerouted some flights between Europe and Tokyo via Greenland instead of crossing through Central Asia and the Middle East.
Eddy Pieniazek, head of the consulting firm Ishka, said airlines likely would quickly return to Middle East skies once the security situation eases, given the limited corridors available to airlines since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war. Longer-lasting fallout might affect demand for travel into the region, with the three biggest Gulf carriers potentially needing to lower prices to stoke bookings.
U.S. carriers have only modest direct exposure to the Middle East but do face pressure from higher jet-fuel prices, TD Cowen analyst Tom Fitzgerald said in a Monday note.
Airlines typically say they can pass fuel price increases on to consumers with a two-to- three-month lag, assuming demand remains healthy, according to Fitzgerald.
“Much will come down to how long the conflict lasts, whether the Strait of Hormuz stays closed, and where jet fuel prices settle in,” Fitzgerald said.
Write to Benjamin Katz at ben.katz@wsj.com and Dean Seal at dean.seal@wsj.com