The war is causing the biggest disruption to travel in years, with thousands of flights affected across the Middle East and beyond, following US and Israeli strikes, according to data from flight-tracking platform FlightAware.
Key transit airports, including Dubai – the world’s busiest international hub – and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, and Doha in Qatar, were closed or severely restricted, while much of the region’s airspace remained closed, Reuters reported.
Dubai International Airport suffered damage during Iranian retaliatory strikes, while airports in Abu Dhabi and Kuwait were also affected.
Dubai and neighboring Doha are at the crossroads of east-west air traffic, channeling long-haul flights between Europe and Asia through tightly planned networks of connecting flights.
With those hubs out of action, planes and crews have been stuck outside their planned positions, disrupting airline schedules around the world.
– It is about a huge number of people and complexity. It’s not just the passengers, it’s the crews and the planes that are everywhere – said British aviation analyst John Strickland.
(Vijesti.ba/Fena)
