European airlines are cancelling more flights to the Middle East as the conflict continues, while industry analysis suggests that the global travel and tourism sector is losing at least $600 million per day from the impact of the war.
With the end of the winter schedule fast approaching at the end of March, several airlines have opted to suspend services to key destinations such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha for the remainder of the season.
British Airways has cancelled all flights to Amman, Bahrain, Doha, Dubai and Tel Aviv up to and including 28 March. While the airline’s seasonal winter service from London Heathrow to Abu Dhabi will not operate again until October 2026. BA is also continuing to run repatriation flights from Muscat in Oman to London this week.
Another UK carrier, Virgin Atlantic, has now suspended its seasonal Heathrow-Dubai flights for this winter, which had been due to run until 28 March. The airline’s Riyadh services are also “paused” for the next two weeks, with their resumption being “assessed on an ongoing basis in line with the latest safety guidance”.
KLM has also cancelled all flights from Amsterdam Schiphol to Dubai up to and including 28 March. Sister carrier Air France has suspended flights from Paris to Dubai and Riyadh up to and including 14 March, while services to Tel Aviv and Beirut are cancelled up to and including 15 March.
Lufthansa Group’s flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Dammam, Amman and Erbil are currently suspended until 15 March, while Tel Aviv services are cancelled until 2 April. The group’s flights to Beirut are also suspended until 28 March, with services to Tehran cancelled until 30 April.
As airlines deal with the operational challenges of the ongoing war in the region, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) estimates that the conflict is costing the tourism sector $600 million per day in lost international visitor spending, as “disruptions to air travel, traveller confidence and regional connectivity affect demand”.
The WTTC points out that the Middle East accounts for 5 per cent of global international arrivals and 14 per cent of global international transit traffic.
Gloria Guevara, WTTC’s president and CEO, added that the travel sector was “resilient” and “can recover quickly” once the conflict ends.
“Our analysis of previous crises demonstrates that security-related incidents often see the fastest tourism recovery times, in some cases as quickly as two months, when governments and industry work together to restore traveller confidence,” she said.
Olivier Jankovec, director general of airports association ACI Europe, said that the war was “upending traffic forecasts” for 2026 and made the “outlook highly uncertain for now”.
“The Middle East and in particular the Gulf has over the past 20 years become an important part of connectivity and traffic volumes for many European airports – from larger regional ones to major hubs,” added Jankovec.
“This is not just about direct connectivity and traffic to the Middle East, but also indirect connectivity via that region to Asia-Pacific.”
Lufthansa Group has already reacted to this factor by adding more short notice long-haul flights to Asia and Africa during the next few weeks, with Lufthansa planning extra flights from Munich to Singapore, and Frankfurt to Cape Town. Austrian Airlines is also to operate 10 extra flights from Vienna to Bangkok.
The corporate travel industry is also waiting to see what impact the crisis and the huge shifts in oil prices are likely to have on airfares in the coming weeks and months.