International airlines steered clear of Iraq on Friday after Washington banned US air carriers from Iraqi skies in the immediate wake of US air strikes on Islamist fighters.
Flights to and from the Gulf and beyond, which typically would have taken airways through Iraq, favored parallel routes via Iran instead, according to realtime flight-tracking Web sites.
Flightradar24.com indicated a long stream of airliners on Friday evening Middle East time, flying single file through western Iran — and virtually none over Iraq, in a complete reversal from a month ago.
“We’re still seeing some non-US carriers that are overflying Iraq,” notably regional and domestic ones, Daniel Baker of US-based FlightAware.com added.
“By and large, though, we are seeing a lot of people going further to the north” and over the Turkish-Iran border, avoiding Iraq as well as war-torn Syria, he said.
The Federal Aviation Administration in Washington banned all US civilian flights over Iraq just hours after US warplanes bombed positions held by Islamic State insurgents, who have occupied swathes of northern Iraq.
British Airways declared it would no longer overfly Iraq, as did Lufthansa and its subsidiaries Austrian Airlines and Swiss — joining Air France, Emirates, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and Virgin Atlantic, which had quietly opted to do so over the past two weeks.
In a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM), the aviation administration cited the “potentially hazardous situation created by the armed conflict” between Islamic State militants and Iraqi security forces “and their allies” as the reason for the indefinite ban.
The ban extends to “all US air carriers and commercial operators,” as well as US-licensed pilots unless they are flying aircraft registered in the US for a foreign operator.
Chiefly affected by the aviation administration’s notice are Delta and United Airlines, which both serve Gulf destinations from the US — although flight tracking Web sites indicated Delta was already flying detours around Iraq.
“Very, very few flights from the United States fly over Iraq in the first place,” FlightAware’s Baker said.
However, the air lanes over northern and eastern Iraq have typically been favored by international carriers for long-haul flights between Europe, the Middle East and Asia, despite many years of turmoil on the ground.
In a NOTAM dated July 22, the Iraq Civil Aviation Authority urged all pilots to “exercise caution... due to an increase of military operations from the ground to 23,500 feet [7,162m].”
And last week the European Aviation Safety Agency told EU carriers to “exercise caution” over Iraq, saying “a potentially hazardous situation may exist” due to armed conflict.
Eurocontrol, the EU air traffic control service, reposted the Federal Aviation Administration’s NOTAM on its Web site on Friday, without announcing any restrictions of its own.
Jitters about flights over war zones escalated after the July 17 downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 between Amsterdam and Kuala Lumpur above an area of eastern Ukraine controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
All 298 passengers and crew were killed after the Boeing 777 was knocked out of the sky by a ground-to-air missile, allegedly by rebels targeting a Ukrainian military aircraft.
On the heels of Friday’s Federal Aviation Administration announcement, British Airways said it was “temporarily suspending our flights over Iraq” and using alternative routes to serve such Gulf points as Doha and Dubai.
Turkish Airlines, one of the key foreign carriers flying to Iraq, meanwhile said it had halted flights to Arbil “for security reasons until further notice,” following a similar announcement on Thursday by Etihad Airways.
Last month, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited US airlines from overflying eastern Ukraine in the wake of the Malaysian Airlines tragedy, expanding a ban it had previously limited to Crimea.
It also briefly barred US air carriers from Tel Aviv after a Hamas rocket fell near the Israeli city’s Ben Gurion airport in the midst of the Gaza crisis.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in