After Lufthansa
Other airlines are avoiding Iran’s airspace
April 13, 2024, 5:21 p.m
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After Lufthansa announced that it would fly around Iranian airspace in the future, other airlines are now following suit. Qantas Airways from Australia and the Dutch airline KLM want to fly around Iran and partly Israel due to the escalating conflict.
In view of Iran’s threats against Israel, more and more airlines are avoiding Iranian airspace. After Lufthansa, the Dutch airline KLM and the Australian airline Qantas have now also announced the adjustment of flight routes.
Qantas’ Perth-London route, which is actually flown without a stopover, will stop in Singapore to refuel until further notice. This makes it possible to avoid flying through dangerous airspace, the AAP news agency quoted the airline as saying. The return flight remains unchanged thanks to the prevailing winds. The non-stop Perth-London flight normally takes around 17.5 hours and can only be done with a Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner with a route via Iran, as the Guardian reported.
KLM is now no longer flying over Iran and most of Israel. The airline said this was done “as a precautionary measure,” reported the Dutch news agency ANP. However, KLM continues to fly to the Israeli city of Tel Aviv on the Mediterranean coast.
Situation is coming to a head
At the beginning of 2020, amid military tensions with the USA, Iran mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger plane shortly after take-off from Tehran. All 176 passengers died in the disaster.
After a suspected Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy compound in Syria at the beginning of April, threats from Tehran towards Israel increased. Israel then declared that it would not leave unanswered a possible attack by Iran on its territory.