By Kelechi Deca
When I received an email from AAAdvantage courtesy of Qatar Airways on flight advisory I knew “that which I feared has befallen upon me.”
Let me try to unpack this in the most basic way possible.
The Middle East is on a lockdown. Qatar has joined the rest of the region in shutting down its airspace. As I write, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and Jordan have joined a list of other countries such as Israel, Iraq, Iran, in shutting down their airspaces. It is now a major regional issue.
The skies over the Middle East form a critical artery in aviation connecting Europe, Asia, and Africa especially after Russia and Ukraine’s airspace experienced shut downs due to their own war, the Gulf corridor became the available route connecting the three continents.
Aviation sector is a very fragile industry and all it takes is one incident to achieve a cascading effect that falls beyond aviation because aviation is central to human mobility.
Of the top 10 airlines with the highest number of international destinations, three are in the Middle East. Qatar flies to 85 countries, Emirates flies to 77 countries, and Turkish, which has the highest number of international destinations (130 countries) conducts over 30% of its flight operations in the Middle East.
And that region has the second busiest airport in the world Dubai International Airport (DXB) with 5.1 million seats, just behind Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL) with 5.6 million seats.
Emirates operates a fleet of about 264 aircraft. It is the largest operator of both the Airbus A380 and the Boeing 777 family of aircraft. It flies to over 150 destinations in 85 countries.
Even though they have one of the most expansive airports in the world, it was not designed to have all these aircraft in a holding position in Dubai. They are presently struggling to get spaces for their aircraft across the world.
Qatar Airways’ fleet size is 233 aircraft, while Etihad Airways operates a fleet of 101 aircraft, and Saudi Airlines (Saudia) operates a fleet of approximately 150 aircraft, they are all struggling to find spaces for them as the four major aviation hubs in the Middle East are all shut down.
With aircraft unable to take off, land, or even pass through Qatari airspace, fleet schedules have collapsed, forcing cancellations across Europe, Asia, and Africa-bound routes.
What this development means is that with the cancellations, their code sharing partners are equally suffering cancellations and delays and rerouting of flights and passenger chaos. If you know how extensive the partnership of the Gulf airlines runs, then you would appreciate that this is a global crisis. This would leave thousands of passengers stranded across 150 countries of the world.
From One World, Sky Team, and Star Alliance, this contagion would infect all other airlines across the world, bringing the sector to its feet at a period when it had already calculated its expected summer profits.
With the cancellation of flights, the delays, and the rerouting, hotels are also being cancelled, tour operators are cancelling bookings, and airport taxi fleets are feeling the pinch. It is a chain of chaos cascading down to shops.
Hotels were nearing full occupancy. Tour agencies had launched promotions. Now, cancellations are pouring in. As if that was not enough, travel insurers are already flagging Qatar as “high-risk,” while corporate travel managers scramble to reroute business trips and global meetings.
Qatar is at the crossroads of international aviation. With Doha’s Hamad International Airport being one of the busiest and most interconnected hubs globally, the sudden halt in airspace access has brought regional and intercontinental travel to a crawl.
The Gulf region’s tourism industry has taken a big hit because June marks the start of a busy season for Gulf tourism, especially for transit travelers passing through Doha en route to destinations like the Maldives, Thailand, and Europe.
According to reports, hotel cancellations are off the hook, and airport hotels are dealing with a flood of stranded passengers needing last-minute accommodations. Tour operators are issuing refunds and scrambling to restructure regional itineraries. Cruise lines are rerouting or delaying port calls, avoiding Gulf stops altogether.
Some airlines placed the “No Fly” notice till June 30. I pray this does not escalate beyond this week because handling a day’s backlog alone is backbreaking, not to talk of a week.
Our world is so interconnected that a cough at one end would cause a sneeze at another end.
