Flights grounded. Airports shut. Hundreds of thousands stranded. The Middle East conflict is now hitting global travel hard.
Air travel across the Middle East plunged into chaos Saturday after US and Israeli strikes on Iran — and Iran’s retaliatory missile attacks — forced major regional hubs to shut down, triggering one of the worst aviation disruptions in years.
Dubai International Airport, the world’s busiest international travel hub handling more than 1,000 flights daily, suspended operations after sustaining damage during overnight missile attacks. Airports in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait were also affected, while Doha’s Hamad International Airport closed as airspace across large parts of the region was shut.
Flight-tracking maps showed skies over Iran, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait and Bahrain nearly empty. Airlines across Europe and Asia rushed to cancel or reroute services as conflict corridors expanded.
Preliminary data from aviation analytics firm Cirium showed airlines canceled roughly half of scheduled flights to Qatar and Israel, and about 28 percent of flights to Kuwait. Overall, nearly a quarter of all flights to the Middle East were scrapped.
“The scale of these hubs today is enormous,” said UK aviation analyst John Strickland. “You will have hundreds of thousands of people stuck in the wrong parts of the world without certainty about when they can move.”
Dubai and Doha sit at the center of global east-west air travel, connecting Europe and Asia through tightly synchronized long-haul networks. Any prolonged shutdown ripples worldwide, disrupting cargo operations and passenger routes far beyond the region.
Eric Schouten, head of aviation security advisory Dyami, warned that airspace closures may last. “Passengers and airlines can expect airspace to be shut for quite some time,” he said.
The crisis adds to growing aviation strain since the Russia-Ukraine war restricted key flight paths. Conflict zones increase operational risk, raise fears of accidental aircraft shootdowns, and force longer routes that drive up fuel costs.
At Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport, travelers bound for Asia scrambled for alternatives after connecting flights via Doha were canceled. In Dubai, stranded passengers faced uncertainty, while tracking platform Flightradar24 briefly crashed under surging demand.
The European Union Aviation Safety Agency advised airlines to avoid affected airspace until further notice.
What began as a military escalation has quickly evolved into a global transport emergency — underscoring how tightly the world’s travel networks are linked to Middle Eastern stability.
