Middle East Unrest Grounds Flights, Starts Travel Chaos

Rising tensions in the Middle East have led to widespread disruptions in air travel, with flights being diverted or cancelled. The situation escalated after Iran launched a missile attack on Israel. Major airlines have rerouted or suspended flights, impacting airports and highlighting safety concerns in the region.

Rising tensions in the Middle East have created air travel chaos, with global airlines diverting or cancelling flights on Wednesday and regional airports, including Lebanon, Israel and Kuwait, showing long delays, according to FlightRadar24 data. Concern over travel disruption as the conflict intensifies also knocked shares in the travel and airline sectors.

Iran launched its largest missile attack against Israel on Tuesday in retaliation for Israel's campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, prompting a threat from Israel of a "painful response." On Wednesday morning, a few flights were seen over Iranian airspace, according to a FlightRadar24 map, including from carrier flydubai, after Iran said its ballistic missile attack on Israel was over.

However, flights across the entire region were diverted or disrupted with little sign of broader normalisation, with some changing their routes to avoid certain airspace. "All planes - mainly flights to India – are avoiding Iranian airspace until further notice," said a spokesperson for Polish flag carrier LOT.

Europe's aviation safety regulator EASA issued two conflict zone information bulletins at the end of September advising airlines not to use Israeli or Lebanese airspace "at all flight levels." It has not recently issued such a bulletin for Iranian airspace. Carriers around the world have cancelled flights to Israel and Lebanon in the wake of the escalating conflict, with many saying they won't resume until at least mid-October, depending on the security situation.

Both British Airways and Air France-KLM said their flight cancellations to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion airport remained in place until at least early next week, including the Oct. 7 one-year anniversary of Hamas' attack on Israel.

Traffic over the Istanbul, Cairo and Antalya hubs remained dense as flights continued to avoid parts of Middle Eastern airspace. Dubai International Airport reported 85% of its departing flights as delayed, while Beirut's Rafic Hariri International Airport had 60% of its flights cancelled, according to the airline tracker.

At Kuwait International Airport, 67% of arriving flights were delayed. The latest disruptions are expected to deal a further blow to an industry already facing a host of restrictions due to conflicts between Israel and Hamas, and Russia and Ukraine.

(Additional reporting by Anna Koper in Warsaw; Editing by Sharon Singleton and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

(With inputs from agencies.)