Lisa Barrington
(Reuters) – Airlines are avoiding Iranian and Lebanese airspace and cancelling flights to Israel and Lebanon amid growing concerns about potential conflict in the region following the killings of senior leaders of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah this week.
Singapore Airlines (OTC:) did not appear to use Iranian airspace on any of its routes on Friday, according to flight-tracking site Flightradar24. The airline did not respond to a request for comment.
Taiwan’s EVA Air and China Airlines also appeared to be avoiding Iranian airspace on Friday with flights to Amsterdam that had previously flown over Iran, according to Flightradar24 data.
The airline did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the route changes.
OPSGROUP, a membership-based organization that shares flight risk information, in a bulletin recommended that traffic between Asia and Europe avoid Iranian and Iraqi airspace. The move came a day after sources told Reuters that senior Iranian officials were due to meet with representatives of Iran’s regional allies in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen to discuss possible retaliation against Israel.
Many airlines, including U.S. and European carriers, already avoid flying over Iran, especially after mutual missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel in April.
A Singapore Airlines flight to London Heathrow airport early on Friday did not stop through Iran as it had done the previous day, but instead travelled through Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan before travelling through northern Iran, according to Flightradar24.
But as of Friday a number of airlines were still flying over Iran, including the United Arab Emirates’ Etihad Airways, Emirates and flydubai, as well as Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines.
In the past two days, Air India, Germany’s Lufthansa Group, America’s United Airlines and Delta Air Lines and Italy’s ITA Airlines have announced they are suspending flights to Tel Aviv.
Airlines have also been cancelling and delaying flights to the Lebanese capital, Beirut, this week following Saturday’s attack in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that Israel blames on the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, which denies any involvement.
Canada on Thursday told its aircraft to avoid Lebanese airspace for a month, citing risks to aviation from military activity.
Over the past month, Britain has been warning pilots about potential dangers from anti-aircraft weapons and military activity in Lebanese airspace.
Ops Group said that in the event of all-out war in the Middle East, civil aviation would likely face increased risks of drones or missiles crossing air routes, as well as GPS spoofing, a growing phenomenon around Lebanon and Israel, in which military or other actors send signals to fool an aircraft’s GPS system into thinking it is somewhere it is not.
