Airlines have reacted to the recent escalation of the Iran conflict by suspending some services to the Middle East and pushing back the planned resumption of other routes to the region.
Air France has suspended services from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport to both Riyadh and Dubai, although it hopes to restart flights by 24 July and 27 July, respectively. The carrier has also extended the suspension of flights from Paris to Beirut to 2 August.
Meanwhile, sister carrier KLM has suspended flights from Amsterdam Schiphol to Dammam, Riyadh and Dubai until 7 September. KLM is also not flying through the airspace of Iran, Iraq and Israel as a precautionary measure.
Lufthansa Group’s airlines have extended their suspension of flights to Dubai, with Lufthansa, Swiss and Eurowings now due to resume services to the emirate on 24 October.
Other services by Lufthansa, Swiss, Austrian Airlines and Brussels Airlines to destinations including Abu Dhabi, Amman, Beirut, Dammam, Riyadh, Erbil, Muscat and Tehran will also not resume until 24 October.
But Lufthansa, Austrian Airlines and Swiss have restarted flights to Tel Aviv, with Brussels Airlines set to launch services from Brussels to Tel Aviv next month.
British Airways is another carrier to put back its plans to reintroduce more Middle Eastern destinations. Flights from London to Dubai, Tel Aviv, Bahrain and Amman are currently suspended until 25 October.
The UK carrier is still flying from Heathrow to Doha but will reduce frequency from two to one daily flight from 1 August, while its route to Riyadh will go down from twice daily to a daily service from 8 August.
Finnair has also extended its suspension of its Helsinki-Dubai route until 24 October.
Governments have also moved to strengthen travel advice to the Middle East as military strikes between Iran and the US have intensified in the past 10 days.
The Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has upgraded its advice for six countries in the region, including advising its citizens not to travel to Bahrain, while the advice for Qatar, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates is that trips should only go ahead if they are essential.
The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) has not changed the level of advice to the UAE but it has issued a new warning that the situation “remains unpredictable and attacks could resume at short notice”.
Meanwhile, the Australian government has raised its travel advice for Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia to “level three”, which means travellers should reconsider their need to travel to these countries.