Airlines halt flights to Middle East amid unfolding conflictpublished at 12:22
All the major airlines have diverted or cancelled flights to the region, citing safety, and apologising to customers.
Virgin Atlantic said it had cancelled its VS400 service from London Heathrow to Dubai and warned that flights to the Maldives, India and Saudi Arabia might experience longer flight times due to re-routing.
British Airways has cancelled flights to Tel Aviv and Bahrain until Wednesday, and today’s service to Amman is grounded too.
The BA123 service from Heathrow to Doha, which took off on time at 8pm last night, was also ordered to turn around a third of the way into the trip. A few hours later the 200 plus passengers found themselves back on the tarmac in London.
Wizz Air confirmed that it has suspended all flights to and from Israel, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Amman with immediate effect up until and including next Saturday. Flights to and from Saudi Arabia will be cancelled until Tuesday.
Emirates has temporarily suspended its operations.
Lufthansa, Air India and Turkish Airlines are other carriers to have announced cancellations for the region.
US and Israel launch an attack on Iran, as President Donald Trump confirms “major combat operations” are under way and calls for a regime change
The Israel Defense Forces says retaliatory strikes have been launched by Iran towards the country – and explosions have been heard in the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kuwait
Trump has urged Iranians to “take over” the Iranian government, saying “it will be yours to take. This will be probably your only chance for generations”
Washington has been ramping up the pressure on Tehran to agree to a new deal on its nuclear programme. Trump said on Friday he was “not happy” with Iran’s negotiating position during nuclear talks – our Middle East correspondent explains how we got here
Iran’s foreign ministry says it was aware of “intentions” for an attack but continued with nuclear negotiations anyway
The UK government says that it does not want to see “a wider regional conflict” in the Middle East – it is understood the UK was not involved in the attack.
Leave a Reply