Airlines fly over Afghanistan, avoid Middle East as tensions rise

Published: 23 August 2024

Shift began in mid-April during reciprocal missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel

Agencies
London/Seoul

Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa have increased their flights over Afghanistan after years of largely avoiding it now the Middle East conflict has made it seem a relatively safe option, Reuters said in an exclusive report.

The carriers mostly stopped transiting Afghanistan, which lies on major routes between Asia and Europe, three years ago when the Taliban took over and air traffic control services stopped.

Those services have yet to resume, but airlines increasingly consider the skies between Iran and Israel are riskier than Afghan airspace. Many had started routing through Iran and the Middle East after Russian skies were closed to most western carriers when the Ukraine war began in 2022.

“As conflicts have evolved, the calculus of which airspace to use has changed. Airlines are seeking to mitigate risk as much as possible and they see overflying Afghanistan as the safer option given the current tensions between Iran and Israel,” Ian Petchenik, a spokesperson for flight tracking organisation Flightradar24, said.

There were more than seven times the number of flights over Afghanistan in the second week of August than during the same period a year ago, according to a Reuters analysis of FlightRadar24 data.

The shift began in mid-April during reciprocal missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel. Flight tracking data from the time shows Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, British Airways and others began to send a few flights a day over Afghanistan.

But the main growth has been since the killing of senior members of militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in late July raised concerns of a major escalation.

Some pilots are concerned.

“You’re depending on the analysis of your airline. Every time I fly out there, I don’t like the feeling of flying over a conflict area where you don’t know, actually, what is happening,” said Otjan de Bruin, a commercial pilot and head of the European Cockpit Association.

Lufthansa Group told Reuters it decided to resume overflying Afghan airspace from early July.
Other carriers that have increased overflights since April include Turkish Airlines, Thai Airways and the Air France-KLM group, data shows.

“Based on actual security information, KLM and other airlines currently safely overfly Afghanistan only on specific routes and only at high altitudes,” KLM told Reuters.