Aviation Week Network editors discuss the impacts of the Israel-Iran war on airlines, the air transport industry and demand for air travel, as they assess jamming and spoofing, oil prices and network planning.
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Karen Walker:
Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for Window Seat, our Aviation Week air transport podcast. I'm ATW and Aviation Week Network air transport editor-in-chief Karen Walker, and I'm delighted to welcome you onboard. There is, of course, only one major talking point around the world this week as people follow events from when US Air Force B-2 Spirits bombed the sites of nuclear enrichment facilities in Iran at the weekend. We are therefore going to discuss the current and potential impact of those airstrikes on airlines and the global air transport industry. As we saw just one day after the US attacks, Iran did a retaliatory missile strike aimed at a large US-run military base in Qatar, but those missiles were intercepted. Tehran also apparently gave notice to the Qatar government of the planned strike, so countries in the region quickly shut down their airspace and airlines canceled or rerouted their flights to the region.
A day later, airspace was reopening, and airlines were resuming schedules. The question remains, of course, how long this war will continue and what uncertainties will it bring to airlines and to demand for air travel? So, joining me in that discussion are my colleagues and air transport experts: David Casey, editor-in-chief at Routes; Alan Dron, ATW Middle East and Europe senior editor; and Jens Flottau, commercial director at Aviation Week. David, Alan, Jens, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me today.
David, I'm going to start with you. I know you've been tracking this as we all have of course, but very closely as to who's doing what on the airline side. Can you just give a brief summary on where things stand early this week in terms of what airlines are doing in response to the attacks?
David Casey:
Yeah, of course. Thanks Karen. As you said in that introduction then, it's a very fast moving and fluid situation, and airlines have been adjusting almost hour by hour. So, within a 24-hour window, we had the Iran missile strike on the US base in Qatar. We had a ceasefire announced from Donald Trump. Then we had fresh accusations from Israel that Iran had violated that ceasefire, and all of that creates a rapidly changing security picture and airlines are having to respond to that in real time. What does that mean for carriers and for the schedules? Well, I think the first big wave of disruptions that we saw came on June 13, and that's when Israeli strikes on Iran led to the closure of Iranian, Iraqi, Syrian and Israeli airspace, which of course are some of the most critical east-west corridors that connect Europe and Asia. So that obviously forced immediate suspensions and flight rerouting as well.
Then as you said, we had the US strikes on June 22, and that prompted a second wave of schedule changes. Gulf carriers like Emirates, Etihad, Qatar Airways, [and] flydubai either pulled or extended the suspension of flights to destinations like Tehran, Basra, Tel Aviv. European carriers followed suit including British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France, and they also extended cuts not just to destinations within the conflict zone, but also cities like Dubai and Doha as well. Then we had the escalation again on June 23 when Iran fired missiles at the US base. Obviously, there was some advanced warning, so several Gulf states including Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait temporarily closed their airspace, but it did lead to the suspension of all flights by Qatar Airways for a period of time. I think there were about 20 flights diverted as well, while Emirates and Etihad also had knock-on effects with delays and route changes.
I think in all there were about 150 flights that were diverted and one of those even included a Qantas flight that was going from Perth to Paris, had to U-turn over the Indian Ocean after about seven hours of flying. So, I think there's about 15 hours in total just to get back to Perth. So as of June 24, there were dozens of flights in the UAE in Qatar still canceled or delayed. We saw British Airways extending its Doha cancellations through June 25, Air India suspending all operations to the Middle East, to Europe and to the east coast of North America and other carriers like Singapore Airlines, Qantas, Japan Airlines, IndiGo—they've also made cuts to the schedules. And alongside these suspensions, we've also seen a lot of route adjustments just to avoid the region entirely. Now, flights that were normally cross Iran and Iraq and now being rerouted either north over Turkey and Central Asia or the going south via Egypt and Saudi Arabia, and because Russian airspace remained closed to many Western carriers, these rerouting options are funneling traffic down increasingly congested traffic lanes and that can mean longer flights, more fuel burn, extra pressure on crews and aircraft locations and things like that.
So, I guess in short, it's a fast-moving, it's a fluid situation, and while Emirates has said it's business as usual that many flight to and from the Middle East are still being delayed or canceled and routes between Europe and Asia are being rerouted. So, airlines are doing everything to keep services going, but safety has to come first, and that means we're probably going to see more suspensions and cancellations should the situation remain as volatile as what it is at the minute.
Karen Walker:
Yeah, the big word really at the moment is uncertainty, of course, and as you say, massive disruption. Jens, you are based in Frankfurt. So, can I just bring you into this conversation as to what we're seeing so far, your thoughts on the impact and in particular, maybe just talk a little bit to how European carriers are reacting to all of this?
Jens Flottau:
Well, a lot of flights by European carriers into the region have been canceled, and as David says, those that are going to East Asia, Southeast Asia I should say, are being routed to the north or to the south. Bear in mind that European carriers are already suffering from the closure of the Russian airspace and the fact that they have to fly around Ukraine, which is adding a lot to their flight times. So for them, this is kind of really the worst-case scenario because as David mentioned, these are basically two main corridors left they can use between Europe and Asia.
On the other hand, I have to say I was amazed to follow on the [June] 23rd how quickly things were reopening. We had the warning, we had the attack, and just within, I would say, two hours or so, Dubai reopened, UAE reopened. Then a few hours later, Qatar reopened, Bahrain reopened. So, it seems as if the carriers in this region obviously have a very different approach to things there. They have no choice, I guess, but in a way they are used to this. I mean, there's been airspace blockade, closures all along. Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Qatar itself suffered from the blockade for four years that was ended in 2021, and they had to fly around large parts of the Middle Eastern airspace for years. So, this was an extreme case. It was short-lived, but it's not like it's been completely unprecedented.
Karen Walker:
You made two good points there that, first of all, just you're right, it was quite amazing how quickly the Gulf carriers were announcing that they've reopened. And as you were saying, they were really trying to say it's business back to normal. They sort of have to because they are very important international hub setups, aren't they? They're not necessarily taking people in and out of Dubai or wherever; they're taking people onto India or onto all sorts of other places in the world. So, it's that connecting traffic that's really, really important to them and maintaining that. So that's very interesting. I think also what you said about the effect on those route changes for the Asian routes is a sort of a side effect of all of this, but certainly we've seen things happen very quickly both closing down and then reopening.
I just wonder even when announcing, “yeah, we're back to normal, we're reopening,” will the demand for air travel still be there at this moment? Are people looking at this and thinking, “oh yeah, great. It's now okay to go to Dubai or Doha?”
Jens Flottau:
I mean, the shorter answer is that it's impossible to say [what] the longer one would be—I think people forget quickly [what has] happened after crashes, [what has] happened after a similar crisis before. I can tell you from my own family, my son is going to fly to Bangkok next week via Abu Dhabi on Etihad, and we're thinking, okay, let's wait and see how this evolves. But we haven't canceled the flights yet and we'll probably allow him to fly anyway if things settle down and are done by then. So maybe I'm an example for people who also forget fast, but don't forget, I mean a large part of the Europe to Asia traffic has been lost already by European airlines and to a lesser extent by Asian airlines. That is all going through those hubs in the Middle East. Lufthansa, Air France, BA [British Airways] never have had a very strong Asian network, but Lufthansa had. That's all been diminished over the past few years.
So, in a way, it's not only the airlines that are in the region that are dependent on the reopening, but also passengers on either end. There's little choice but to fly with Emirates, Qatar, or Etihad. By the way, I forgot to mention one thing. As I was watching the reopening, I was amazed to see that the day after this all happened, people started to fly over Iran as well. There were some of the airlines—Pobeda, the Russian low-cost carrier, flew over Iran. IndiGo did so. Turkish Cargo and Qatar Airways I found [also]. So again, people seem to get used to these kinds of crises very quickly.
Karen Walker:
It's both a curse and a blessing that region and those particular airlines and airports—and we know they're excellent airports, excellent airlines—but they both know how to deal with this and are also very important in terms of all of this global connecting traffic.
David, what are your thoughts on in terms of outlook for demand for air travel and how this is going to affect what people are thinking in terms of whether they want to fly through or into the Middle East or even fly long haul generally at the moment?
David Casey:
Yeah, I agree with Jens, but I think in the short term I think we will see a dip in demand. I know people do forget quite quickly, but I think when you have geopolitical tensions like this, people naturally become more cautious. If you're seeing headlines in the news and it's just dubbed “the Middle East” and you're seeing missile strikes, you're hearing about airspace closures, I think it's going to have an effect on travel confidence, and for travel to the Middle East itself to places like Dubai, Abu Dhabi or Doha, I think we could see a softening of demand. If you are a leisure traveler, in particular, you may simply choose to delay or change your plans, especially if you're not tied to a fixed date or a destination. But as you said, it's not just about the Middle East. I think there's broader implications for long-haul travel between Europe and Southeast Asia.
As Jens said, a lot of these journeys rely on connections through the big Gulf hubs like Dubai and Doha, and if these hubs are potentially seen as less stable or if rerouted flights are taking longer and cost more, it could make passengers think twice, especially if you are traveling with a family or you're taking a vacation. That said, not everyone's going to change their plans. People are still going to travel if they feel confident in the airline and feel confident in the routing. But overall, I think particularly short term at the moment, we're going to see some softening of demand.
Karen Walker:
It may help, of course, if those airlines that people most associate with this region offer lots of flexibility to passengers, I would imagine if they're able to, I think if they see the airline working with them, I think that's going to be a big factor.
I'm going to just turn now to Saudi Arabia and Saudi Airlines in particular and bring Alan into the conversation. I know Alan and Jens have been following this a lot. So, I'll start with Alan in terms of, we know Saudi Arabia has got this 2030 Vision to really develop itself into another global hub in the area, and of course we've got the new airline, Riyadh Air, that's due to start as a national carrier at the end of the year. Alan, what are your first thoughts? You and I were just recently—well and Jens, we were all at the Paris Air Show—and we saw quite a lot of presence again from the Saudi carriers and big plans to grow new aircraft orders.
So, Alan, what are your thoughts in terms of what's going on right now? How will that affect those growth plans and that Saudi vision for air transport?
Alan Dron:
Frankly, I think it'll be absolutely minimally affected. As you said, all of the Saudi carriers are growing rapidly or are about to grow rapidly with Riyadh Air about to come online by the end of this year. The Saudi low-cost carriers like Flynas, the Flyadeal are growing like topsy at the moment, and frankly, the Vision 2030 project is so important to Saudi Arabia. They're not going to allow anything to get in the way. So, I really think the effect of the current problems will be absolutely minimal at the most.
Karen Walker:
That's interesting. Jens, what are your thoughts on that?
Jens Flottau:
I guess I agree with Alan. I would also say the Riyadh Air project, they're lucky to be late, thanks to Boeing. So as of now, they're not flying yet, and who knows what the situation is like by the end of the year. If there is a dip in demand, as David suggests, who knows a year from now, whether people will have changed their mind again. But yes, fundamentally, I think this is the core of Saudi's economic opening, and I would say that yes, that is going to continue. I mean, it's more of a problem for the smaller airlines in the region and not the Riyadh Airs, soon to be Riyadh Airs, or the Qatars. I think if you're a Royal Jordanian and you operate out of Oman and you've got Iranian missiles flying over your country every few weeks or right now, every day you've got Israeli strikes on Iran, you are operating in a very, very difficult environment. You've got spoofing and jamming. We'll talk about that in that region all over the place. That's where the real pain is. Saudis, I think that'll be fine.
Karen Walker:
You just raised a good point there, Jens, on spoofing and jamming. That had become an issue in certain parts of the world, mostly sort of around the Eastern European area, and now we're hearing the concern again from airlines in this region. Alan, can you just talk a little bit, first of all, just please explain what is it and why are airlines worried about jamming and spoofing?
Alan Dron:
Yeah, sure. As we know, airlines rely on global positioning systems, GPS satellites. The signals from GPS satellites, which if I remember correctly, are about 26,000 miles out in orbit, the signals by the time they reach aircraft are very, very weak. So that it is easy to block them. Jamming is where the GPS signal is actually blocked. Spoofing is where the signal is subtly altered, and it means that the aircraft on the instruments in the cockpit appears to be somewhere else than its actual real location. Now, spoofing is potentially more dangerous than jamming because theoretically, an airline could be decoyed accidentally or deliberately into a dangerous area of airspace. One of the groups tracking this phenomenon is a New Zealand organization called Ops Group. They've been warning of the dangers of spoofing for some time in the past couple of years. They've noted a particular hotspot, two particular hotspots, one centered in Tel Aviv in Israel, one centered in Iraq.
Interestingly, they reckon that the problem is not deliberate attempts to jam or decoy aircraft off track. They believe that it's a defensive effort to deliberately throw off the guidance systems of things like uncrewed aerial vehicles or even missiles. So that being said, they are worried that there is the real potential of an accident, and they actually said last year that an accident directly caused by spoofing impact is imminent, and they mentioned that the EGPWS systems on aircraft—enhanced ground proximity warning systems—are also beginning to be routinely inhibited. And even worse, crews are starting to become accustomed to ignoring alerts about these things. Apparently, controller pilot data and communications and traffic alert and collision avoidance systems degradations are now common. So, they reckon that there is a latent, and at the moment, largely unaddressed, but growing flight safety risk.
Karen Walker:
So Jens, I think what I'm hearing here from Alan's description there is that the heightened concern about why we're now hearing about concern about jamming and spoofing in the current situation in the Middle East is probably because it's all mixed into sort of wartime activity, and that's the sort of thing that people—it may be happening or not—but there's a concern that there may be some effect going on. Am I hearing that correctly?
Jens Flottau:
There is, and on jamming/spoofing, I'm talking to pilots regularly flying into the region from here, and basically they say everything east of Istanbul is a problem because you're exposed to jamming and spoofing, and it's not only a problem there in the region—fly to Amman or destinations in that region. It's also sometimes coming back. There's been an incident reported by a Lufthansa [Airbus] A220 coming from back from the Middle East that showed the wrong position on the approach to Frankfurt, and that is because the systems due to jamming and spoofing showed the wrong location and would have had to be reset before showing the correct location again. Obviously that's not possible in flight. So, you are carrying wrong information all along back to Europe in some cases, which is a serious safety concern. Nothing has happened so far, but it's something to be watched and there are many initiatives. EASA [and] IATA have just come out with a joint declaration on this issue saying that there needs to be international solutions. There need to be more investment into technical solutions. Right now, it's more about mitigation rather than solving the problem. And if you look at the map, if you look at all these conflicts, this is not going to go away anytime soon. If anything, it's going to get worse.
Karen Walker:
So essentially what's happening right now has brought more attention onto something that people already were aware of as an issue, and it'll probably—the end result is that more will be done now, and bigger action will be taken.
So can I just switch to oil prices because again, with whatever's going on right now, what's interesting actually is the last thing I saw was that oil, crude oil, had actually come down by about 5% to something around $68 a barrel. But everybody's warning it could suddenly go completely the other way. Of course, a lot would depend on, for example, whether Tehran tries to close the Strait of Hormuz, a big, big and very important maritime passageway for oil. So, there's still a lot of unknowns, but again, it's the uncertainty that's a problem for airlines. Again, can I come back to you first, Jens, it could bring a lot of extra cost, operational cost to airlines, and many of them are still in a very fragile financial state. What are your thoughts there on the effects of all of this?
Jens Flottau:
It is extremely hard to predict what's happening, as you say. I mean, I was in a car this morning, I drove past the gas station. I thought, oh man, that's expensive. When I came back an hour later, it had dropped a lot. So, I thought, well, maybe not so bad. Maybe I should go fill up. It is very, very volatile right now, depending on the news coming out of the Middle East and the question you raised, the big question is whether those Strait of Hormuz will remain open or not, if that changes, we have a serious problem, not only the airlines. But bigger picture in 2025, oil prices were—and fuel costs as a consequence were—actually very, very low for airlines. The lower oil prices were the reason why IATA was able to keep up its profit guidance for the full year in spite of lower demand and other costs rising. Oil was actually good news for the airlines. So, if it suddenly turns into bad news now because of geopolitics, that will raise a whole lot of questions on the sustainability [and] profitability of the entire sector.
Karen Walker:
It doesn't take much and certainly on fuel it doesn't take much of a swing for airlines to go from being profitable to quite quickly into the red. So yeah, it could change the outcome, but as you say, it's so hard to tell and airlines can't really just stock up on oil anywhere. They can of course add surcharges to air tickets, but it's, again, a dicey situation. If people are already nervous about flying, they don't want to be pushing up airfares at the same time. Difficult.
So, David, what are your thoughts in terms of network planning, the overall effect there in terms of how do you think airlines are looking at their networks right now?
David Casey:
I don't think we'll necessarily see any major changes at the minute, although, as we've said, that could change depending on how long the period of instability lasts. So, airlines are used to dealing with short-term disruptions, particularly in the Gulf region. But if the crisis drags on or starts to broaden in scope, I think they begin to build that uncertainty into the longer-term thinking. So right now, we're just seeing carriers suspend service and reroute aircraft and generally pull back from areas where there are risks. But the recent wave of cancellations to Doha, Dubai is a good example of that. But if the current situation becomes more of a long-term reality with ongoing missile threats and heightened tensions and things like jamming and spoofing, as we've said, then we could potentially see more structural changes. So, airlines might start to rethink expansion plans to certain parts of the Middle East, especially if they feel that it's becoming too unpredictable to operate reliably.
And then I think there's also the question about long-haul routes between Europe and perhaps parts of Southeast Asia. Some of those are already under pressure because of costs. As we've said, Russian airspace has been closed to many Western carriers for more than three years now. Parts of the Middle East are becoming harder to use as well. So that means flights are getting longer, they're getting more expensive, they’re less fuel efficient, more complicated to operate, and that probably will bring some lower margin routes into question. There might not be many short-term changes in route planning, but longer term, especially when it comes to launching new services or deciding where to invest, we might see some changes.
Karen Walker:
Yeah, I'm based in [Washington] DC, and I can't help but think that from the American, from the US front, we've sort of seen a little bit of this have late anyway, but a bit more of a focus on domestic routes. I can't help but think that the US carriers are probably going to put a bit more priority on the domestic route, or maybe Caribbean [and] Mexico for the leisure side. Nobody's going to Canada, of course, anymore—at least they’re not coming from Canada to the US, but I think you'll see, at least for this year, Americans maybe focusing more on staying a bit closer to home. So, I think we might see some changes there.
Jens, do you have any thoughts on where things are going to go thus year? Nobody knows really, but in terms of outlook for demand?
Jens Flottau:
I don't. But if there is a fundamental shift in demand that affects that region, I would just point out that that's very bad news for Airbus and Boeing because a large part of their widebody backlogs are tied to orders from the Middle East. We just saw AviLease in Paris placing a big order for A350s, some of which will surely end up in Saudi Arabia. We saw the huge Qatar Airways order for, I don’t know how many hundreds—no, I think 210 Boeings, Boeing 787s and 777s. You saw Etihad ordering more aircraft. Emirates, of course has a huge backlog of orders. If that is dented, that will be felt by the two manufacturers, and it'll be painful.
Karen Walker:
Yeah, very good point. Ironically, we have just seen a bit of a surge in terms of new widebody orders and widebody freighters. The A350 freighter was doing well. AviLease, the Saudi lessor that you mentioned, even coming into that market, and of course we haven't really talked about this, but the freighter side, the air cargo side, is at least as much affected by all of this as the passenger side. We're already seeing that one being questioned in terms of the tariffs. It will be interesting. So well, thank you David, Jens, Alan, so much for joining me on this discussion today. We'll all be watching and monitoring and reporting on this very closely, of course. A big thank you also to our producer, Cory Hitt, and of course, a huge thank you to our listeners. Make sure you don't miss us each week by subscribing to Window Seat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen. This Karen Walker disembarking from Window Seat.
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