Hundreds of thousands of travelers remained stranded on Monday in the four corners of the globe, while the persistent closure of airspace in the Middle East, since the start of the American-Israeli military operation, continues to seriously disrupt the activity of the region's major airlines, among the most influential globally.

Published on: 03/02/2026 - 12:13 Modified on: 03/02/2026 - 1:40 p.m.

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This is the biggest mess in global airspace since the Covid-19 pandemic. Hundreds of thousands of passengers were still stranded on Monday March 2 in airports around the world - an indirect consequence of the strikes carried out by the United States and Israel in Iran and Tehran's response.

Read alsoCrisis in the Middle East: follow the situation live

Since Saturday, thousands of flights to the Middle East have been canceled. According to the tracking platform FlightAware, nearly 2,800 flights were canceled on Saturday and 3,156 on Sunday. Monday morning, for the third day of disturbances, there were already 1,239.

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At the same time, according to the flight tracking site Flightradar24, the airspaces of countries in the region remain closed. On Monday, the skies of Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Israel, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar were still empty.

On social networks, messages from passengers are multiplying, explaining that they are stuck at airports. “If my boss looks at me: Johnny, I'll come back later this week, I hope so,” a young passenger stranded in Johannesburg, South Africa, unable to return to London via his Emirates flight, told the SABC News channel.

Among these hundreds of passengers, "a few thousand" French customers are currently stranded not only in the Gulf, but also in Asia or Oceania, according to Patrice Caradec, president of the Union of Tour Operating Companies (Seto).

Also readWar in the Middle East: what to do if we are stuck abroad? Advice from the Quai d'Orsay

Major air hubs

“Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there have been no other crises of this magnitude,” summarizes Didier Bréchemier, expert at the Roland Berger consulting firm, for AFP.

For good reason, the Middle East is home to major air hubs and three of the most productive airlines in the world: Emirates Airlines, headquartered in Dubai, Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, and Qatar Airways, based in Doha.

Dubai's main airport (DXB) is in second position, behind Atlanta (United States) in the world airport ranking, according to the Airports Council International association. After 95.2 million passengers in 2025, the installation said it was aiming for 99.5 million this year, i.e. a tenfold increase in traffic in 30 years.

Also in full expansion, Doha's Hamad airport reported 54.3 million travelers last year, traffic comparable to Frankfurt and Hong Kong.

However, these two airports and these three companies are completely at a standstill. For the moment, Emirates Airlines, the world's largest international carrier, announced that it is suspending all its flights to and from Dubai until 3 p.m. Emirates time (11 a.m. GMT) on Monday. Etihad Airways, for its part, has suspended all flights to and from Abu Dhabi until 2 p.m. UAE time (10 a.m. GMT) and Qatar Airways has halted all operations until further notice.

But in parallel with these three companies, several carriers from other countries have also interrupted their flights to the Middle East. Air France has notably decided to interrupt all its connections to and from Tel Aviv, Beirut, Dubai and Riyadh. The airline Swiss has announced that it is suspending its flights to and from Dubai until Wednesday March 4 inclusive. Flights to and from Tel Aviv will remain suspended until Sunday March 8 inclusive, she added.

The German group Lufthansa, the largest in Europe, has canceled its flights to Tel Aviv, Beirut, Amman, Erbil and Tehran until Saturday March 7 for the moment. The Finnish company Finnair has suspended its flights to Dubai and Doha until Friday.

Same decision for the Hungarian low-cost company Wizz Air which suspended “all flights to and from Israel, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Amman until March 7 inclusive”.

If the Middle East and its airlines have experienced disruptions in the past, such a prolonged closure of airspace – more than 24 hours – and the simultaneous shutdown of the three major transit hubs in the Gulf are unprecedented, according to various analysts.

The logistical challenge of an alternative route

To cope with the situation and unblock global air traffic, airlines are trying to organize themselves to modify their routes and bypass closed airspaces. The objective is now to set up “air bridges” via alternative hubs like Istanbul, confirms Patrice Caradec, president of the Union of Tour Operating Companies (Seto).

A major challenge, according to analysts, as air routes over Iran and Iraq had gained in importance since the start of the war in Ukraine.

“The closures in the Middle East will force companies to take increasingly narrow corridors,” underlines Ian Petchenik, communications director of Flightradar24 to Reuters. Not to mention, according to the expert, that there are added risks of flying over the area between Pakistan and Afghanistan, also in the midst of clashes.

But for Emirates Airlines, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways, the forced pause is likely to be prolonged. “These companies have built their business on the hub and spoke model,” Natasha Heap, a civil aviation specialist at the University of Southern Queensland, in Australia, explains in The Conversation. “They route all passengers to their hub before transporting them to their final destinations. With the closure of airspace, these companies can therefore neither bring in nor leave passengers.”

However, “it is practically impossible for them to move, even temporarily, their base of operations to another country,” she continues. "Emirates, for example, has a fleet of 261 passenger aircraft in service. Simply finding a place to park all these aircraft would already be a considerable challenge."

Not to mention that "beyond the aircraft, airlines need large teams of pilots and cabin crew, significant catering, cleaning, refueling and maintenance operations. And all of these systems are highly integrated and location-specific. It is therefore extremely difficult to manage their offshoring or replication in another country in a very short time."

The situation is therefore a big setback for these three companies. Firstly for their image as Iran has been striking the Gulf monarchies since Sunday. “What they are selling is the security of goods and people, (...) we were talking about Dubai a bit like Switzerland, so obviously it destroys the image,” explains Didier Arino, general manager of the consulting company Protourisme. But also for their economy, while the repercussions “already amount to hundreds of millions of euros in losses for air transport”.

With AFP and Reuters

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