This week Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Yemen and the Maldives severed diplomatic ties with Qatar.
This serious turn in diplomatic events in the Middle East could have serious political and economic consequences, especially for the aviation industry.
Etihad, Emirates, Fly Dubai, Gulf Air and EgyptAir have all suspended flights to and from Qatar. Western carriers such as British Airways continue to fly into and out of Doha so corporate travel continues but the real story is the effect on all the businesses that have opted to become corporate clients of Qatar because of the competitive fares they have been offering on what is reportedly a superb airline product.
Qatar Airways can no longer fly into the countries who have cut ties and it will not be able to use the airspace above Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain and the UAE. This is an undesirable consequence for a carrier which has displayed unabashed ambition to be a global carrier by using its home base of Doha as a hub to enable long-haul flights connecting North America and Europe with Asia.
Being unable to use this airspace will mean different flight paths with the inevitable consequence of higher fuel bills and longer flight times.
The quality of the Qatar long-haul product is about to dip if flights into and out of Doha take longer because of new flight paths. Time is an awfully important criterion in planning any business trip. Connecting flights are often cheaper but are only opted for if the trade-off between better value and quality for more travelling time is considered acceptable. This new extra time might tip the balance, especially as some flight connections already amount to several hours.
The higher operating costs that a longer flight path is likely to cause Qatar Airways to incur will probably not affect corporate fares immediately because contracts are written well in advance and for a year or more. Even if over the longer term competitive factors mean that corporate fares remain unchanged, buyers will be affected regardless.
Longer flight times and a more restricted network will make QR a less attractive option for business travellers and, possibly, less feasible for their organisations. A shift away from Qatar could mean contracted volume targets not being met. Or it could mean having to purchase flights on another carrier with whom one does not have a corporate negotiated rate and that might mean higher costs.
Qatar might be the preferred supplier on some routes but the new extra time on their flights between Europe and Asia might make travellers feel justified in deviating from travel policy.
A lot of data is currently in use to enable travel buyers to make informed decisions in their supplier negotiations. Much of it is based on past travel behaviour and future air fares.
The effects of any likely changes that geopolitical factors could precipitate also need to enter those calculations before ink is dry on any contracts.