PARIS (Reuters) – Israel’s neighbours closed airspace and airline crews skirted an escalating conflict, with many seeking diversions, after Iran fired a salvo of ballistic missiles at Israel on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for tracking service FlightRadar24 said flights diverted “anywhere they could,” and a snapshot of traffic in the region showed flights spreading in wide arcs to the north and south, with many converging on Cairo and Istanbul.
FlightRadar24 said Istanbul and Antalya in southern Turkey were becoming congested, forcing some airlines to divert south.
Iran launched the strikes in retaliation for Israel’s campaign against Tehran’s Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, and Israel vowed a “painful response” against its enemy.
Eurocontrol, a pan-European air traffic control agency, earlier sent a warning to pilots about the escalating conflict.
“A major missile attack has been launched against Israel in the last few minutes. At present the entire country is under a missile warning,” it said in an urgent navigation bulletin.
Shortly afterwards it announced the closure of Jordanian and Iraqi airspace as well as the closure of a key crossing point into airspace controlled by Cyprus.
An Iraqi pilot bulletin said its Baghdad-controlled airspace was “closed due to security until further notice”.
Iraq’s transport ministry later announced the reopening of Iraqi airspace to incoming and outgoing civilian flights at Iraqi airports. FlightRadar24 said on X that “it will be a while before flights are active there again”.
Jordan also reopened its airspace after closing it following the volley of Iranian missiles fired towards Israel, the Jordanian state news agency reported.
Lebanon’s airspace will be closed to air traffic for a two-hour period on Tuesday, Transport Minister Ali Hamie said on X.
The latest disruptions are expected to deal a further blow to an industry already facing a host of restrictions due to conflicts between Israel and Hamas, and Russia and Ukraine.
(Reporting by Tim Hepher, Yomna Ehab, Tala Ramadan, Jaidaa Taha and Maya Gebeil; Editing by Joe Brock and Jonathan Oatis)