Airlines in turbulence as flight risks rise amid conflicts – DW – 07/01/2025

DW

5 days ago

A range of global conflicts, from Ukraine to the Middle East, are reshaping global aviation. Airlines not only have to avoid certain airspaces but also be prepared for possible interference in their flight systems.
The war between Iran and Israel in the Middle East has led to complications for airlines seeking to avoid the airspace whilst also complying with an ongoing Russian airspace ban.
Although Iranian airspace has partially reopened following a ceasefire, data from flight tracking website flightradar24 shows that Western airlines are still largely avoiding flying over the country. Most are choosing routes skirting the country's western border, through Iraqi airspace, or over the Arabian peninsula.
With Russia having barred Western planes from its skies since 2022, it's the latest example of how an era of rising global conflict is affecting the aviation sector.
Another example came in April this year, when Pakistan closed its airspace to Indian carriers after India launched missile strikes on Pakistan, in a military campaign codenamed Operation Sindoor. Although Western airlines are not barred from Pakistani airspace, most currently choose to avoid it.
Brendan Sobie, a Singapore-based aviation analyst, says airlines having to reroute due to conflict is nothing new, but he notes that things are especially "complicated" at present.
"It's happened a few times now where we've had a lot of chunks of air space in close proximity to each other, close at the same time," he told DW.
John Grant, chief analyst at the aviation data company OAG, agrees that there is "a lot more activity" at the moment. He says the Pakistan-India airspace closure is a particular problem for Air India as it means the company's planes must now make a stop during trips to the United States.
What has been happening in the Middle East "absolutely is a problem," he argues, noting, however, that airlines have been "adjusting well," particularly by flying over the Arabian Peninsula.
"Some people in Saudi Arabia have obviously been a lot busier than they're normally accustomed to, but it hasn't disrupted flight schedules," he told DW. "Aircraft is still arriving and departing on time, and the industry continues to manage its way through these things."
In Grant's view, the complications caused by armed conflicts are part of the general unpredictability faced by airline managers all the time.
"If we cast our minds back four or five years, the airlines had to deal with a pandemic, which was much worse than anything else," he said, adding that he doesn't believe though that the challenges of operating this year are very different to those of the last decade.
"I think every airline CEO probably wakes up every morning, or at least his flight operations director wakes up and wonders what next event or activity in two years that's going to have to be managed and worked through."
In terms of business bottom lines, Brendan Sobie says it is often the shorter haul flights that are worst affected by airspace closures. So, for example, the routes between Central Asian countries and the Middle East following the closure of Iranian airspace.
"These tend to be short routes, two, three hours, and they become five, six hours, because usually the almost entire flight is over Iran, and you have to go all the way around," said Sobie.
He added that repeated airspace closures "can be quite expensive" because of longer flights and the risk of cancelled flights, due to changed route paths. "It all adds cost."
John Grant thinks that European airlines have had three years to adjust to the Russian airspace ban and have largely coped.
But other factors, such as surging environmental taxes, are having just as detrimental an impact on airlines, making operations "too expensive," with the arising cost getting "passed on to the traveler."
Yet, the perception that global conflict is impacting aviation safety is clearly a concern.
Nick Careen, senior vice president for operations, safety and security at the International Air Transport Association (IATA) — an airline trade body — wrote an article in late June for the IATA website titled "Operating Safely in a More Conflict-Ridden World."
With a reference to the downing of Azerbaijan Airlines flight 8243 last December, he wrote: "Recent conflict in the Middle East understandably has passengers asking what measures are in place to keep flying safe when there are military activities including missile launches." Investigations suggest it was shot down by a Russian missile.
Careen raised the specific issue of interference with airplane navigation systems as "a further complication."
There has been a "surge in incidents," he said, where "parties in conflict use radio signals to jam the GPS signals that airliners use for navigation," particularly in areas bordering conflict zones.
Flightradar24's GPS jamming map shows a map of the world divided into areas of low and high GPS interference. The area with the highest level of interference is a circle stretching from the Baltic states, across Ukraine and Russia, and down towards Turkey and parts of the Middle East.
Grant notes that GPS jamming is "another potential risk" to the airline industry," but adds that airlines are "extremely conscious of this and have more than one system for navigating their way through these pieces of airspace."
A study by the OPS Group, an international flight operations membership organization, reported a 500% increase in so-called "GPS Spoofing" between 2023 and 2024. GPS spoofing is where a GPS receiver is manipulated and receives false GPS Information.
Grant thinks the practice is undoubtedly on the rise, but cautions that airlines have robust mechanisms in place to guard against the risks it poses.
"The whole industry works on a basis of minimizing every potential risk," he said, adding: "Airlines are very good at controlling what they can control. But there are always uncontrollable factors."