Multiple countries in the Middle East have closed their airspace, and global flights have been largely grounded

      Affected by the US Israel military strike on Iran on February 28th and the subsequent escalation of the situation, as of 12:00 on March 3rd, Iran, Israel, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Syria, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates have implemented airspace closures or strict temporary controls. Among them, 7 countries including Iran, Israel, and Iraq have implemented nationwide closures, the United Arab Emirates has implemented temporary partial closures, and Jordan has implemented temporary airspace restrictions from 18:00 to 9:00 the next day. Flight tracking data shows that there was no civilian flight activity in the UAE airspace at one point, with over 2800 daily flight cancellations in the Middle East on March 1st.

      The three major hub airports in the Middle East, Dubai, Doha, and Abu Dhabi, have all shut down, and the core capacity of regional airlines has stagnated. Emirates Airlines has suspended all flights to and from Dubai until 19:00 on March 2nd (Beijing time), and will only operate a small number of evacuation flights from the evening of March 2nd; Qatar Airways has suspended all flights in and out of Doha due to airspace closure, and has deployed additional ground personnel to assist stranded passengers; Etihad Airways has extended the suspension of flights to Abu Dhabi until 2:00 am on March 3rd (UAE time). The daily transit passenger flow of about 90000 passengers from three airlines is directly affected, putting pressure on the global Eurasian non transit network.

      The three major domestic airlines have urgently adjusted their Middle East routes and activated emergency plans. Air China, China Eastern Airlines and China Southern Airlines cancelled core direct flights from Beijing to Dubai, Shanghai to Abu Dhabi, Guangzhou to Dubai, etc. During the period from March 3 to 9, the cancellation of flights from Chinese Mainland to and from the United Arab Emirates increased by about 40 flights compared with the same period in February. Part of the Middle East related routes that have not been cancelled have implemented detours, resulting in a general increase of 1-1.5 hours in flight distance. At the same time, the three airlines have launched free refund and modification services for tickets on Middle Eastern routes from February 28th to March 15th, to protect the rights and interests of passengers.

      The airspace control this time also resulted in a large number of flight diversions and reversals. As of March 2nd, at least 145 flights originally scheduled to fly to Tel Aviv and Dubai have been diverted to airports such as Athens, Istanbul, and Rome, with some flights urgently returning en route. The Chinese Embassy in the United Arab Emirates has issued a safety reminder, advising passengers to closely check the flight status before travel and avoid blindly going to the airport.