Updated 29 April at 09:30
Since 28 February, the Middle East skies have been in turmoil, even though activity is picking up again. While in the early days of the conflict, cancellation rates peaked at over 65 %, according to Cirium, a recovery trend emerged from mid-March, with cancellations falling back below 10-11 %on 6 April. But now, we must add the consequences of the sudden rise in oil prices and the kerosene supply difficulties linked to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. An updated look, airline by airline, at suspended routes in the Middle East, fuel surcharges, and cancelled flights to preserve fuel stocks.
European companies
AIR FRANCE-KLM
Middle East: Air France has suspended its routes to and from Dubai, Riyadh, Tel Aviv, and Beirut until May 10th (until May 11th for flights departing from Dubai). Transavia France has cancelled its services to Tel Aviv and Beirut until July 5th. KLM has stopped its flights to and from Dubai, Riyadh, and Dammam until June 14th, with routes to Tel Aviv and Beirut also being disrupted until this date.
Fuel/Kerosene Surcharge: AIR FRANCE and KLM have increased their fares by €100 return – for economy class – on most of their long-haul flights, slightly less – €70 – for flights to the United States, Canada and Mexico. A surcharge of €10 on a return trip in Economy class applies to short- and medium-haul flights, including those of TRANSAVIA. Furthermore, while KLM states that there is no "kerosene shortage", the Dutch airline will nonetheless cancel 80 return flights to and from Amsterdam Schiphol in the coming months – representing less than 1% of its European flights – particularly some of its routes to London and Düsseldorf. Transavia has announced, for its part, the cancellation of less than 2 % of its flight schedule for the May-June period.
Lufthansa Group
Middle East: LUFTHANSA, SWISS, BRUSSELS AIRLINES, AUSTRIAN AIRLINES and ITA AIRWAYS will not serve Tel Aviv and Dubai until 31 May. For Abu Dhabi, Amman, Beirut, Dammam, Riyadh, Erbil, Muscat and Tehran, the suspension is extended until 24 October. EUROWINGS, for its part, will not resume flights to Tel Aviv before 11 May and to Beirut and Erbil before 14 May. In parallel, its routes to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Amman are suspended until 24 October.
Fuel/Kerosene Surcharge: The group announced the immediate cessation of operations at its regional subsidiary Lufthansa CityLine, permanently retiring 27 fuel-guzzling aircraft from its flight schedule and automatically reducing its European offering by 1 % for the summer. Furthermore, the German airline vto be removed from its programme nearly 120 daily flights, including deficit routes between Frankfurt and Bydgoszcz and Rzeszow in Poland, as well as Stavanger in Norway.
BRITISH AIRWAYS has cancelled its flights to Riyadh until 20 May, to Amman, Bahrain and Tel Aviv until 31 May, and to Doha and Dubai until 1 July. As for Abu Dhabi, services will not resume before 25 October.
IBERIA is suspending some of its flights to Tel Aviv and Doha, but is re-routing its customers onto codeshare flights with EL AL and Qatar Airways. Meanwhile, facing a kerosene shortage in Cuba, Iberia will gradually suspend its direct route between Madrid and Havana between June and November 2026. In the meantime, the number of weekly rotations will decrease from three in April, to two in May, before flights are completely suspended in June.
SAS has announced the cancellation of nearly 1,000 flights throughout April – compared to its daily 800 flights – in response to the soaring price of oil.
TURKISH AIRLINES has announced the cancellation of some of its flights to and from the entire region. See the company website for flight status.
Gulf Companies
EMIRATES is currently operating a reduced flight schedule to over 100 destinations. Until 30 April, Emirates will offer two daily flights to Paris, one flight per day to Nice and four flights to Lyon. Most major global cities are also included in its flight schedule (see its site).
ETIHAD has expanded its network with 80 destinations served from or to Abu Dhabi. The airline will, in particular, resume its flights to Bahrain, Beirut, Kuwait, and Medina from May 1st, with services to Doha, Johannesburg, Saint Petersburg, and Tunis remaining suspended. As part of this programme, Etihad will offer from 1er As of June 14th, there will be two daily connections to Paris-CDG and four flights per day to London Heathrow. Daily services to Bangkok, Dublin, Geneva, New York, Seoul, Singapore, Tel Aviv, and Zurich are also planned.
GULF AIR is returning to more sustained activity in Bahrain, while maintaining the rerouting of certain links to Dammam Airport, Saudi Arabia, until the end of April. These include services to Athens, Cairo, Manila, Islamabad, and Lahore. In Bahrain, approximately fifty destinations will be progressively offered: London, Dubai, Riyadh, Jeddah, Islamabad, Lahore, Nairobi, and Istanbul as before, but also Paris and Frankfurt, served by a daily flight from 1st March.er Nice will, on its side, benefit from two weekly links starting on 23 May. Milan, Moscow, Geneva: all these metropolises, among others, will be on the programme in the coming weeks, in addition to most major cities in the Middle East, as well as flights to Singapore, Shanghai and New York.
KUWAIT AIRLINES, after having long used Dammam Airport to maintain part of its operations, repositioned its flights to Kuwait Airport on April 26th with the following destinations offered: London, Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo, Riyadh, Jeddah, Mumbai, Chennai, Cochin, Delhi, Colombo, Dhaka, Islamabad, Manila and Guangzhou. With Paris not featuring on this list, it is possible to book a Kuwait-Paris flight on the airline's website from May 16th.
Oman Air resumed its services to Dubai in April with daily flights, as well as to Bahrain with five flights per week and to Khasab with four flights per week. These frequencies are expected to increase depending on demand, as will the service to Salalah, Riyadh and Amman. Its flights to and from Doha, Kuwait, Copenhagen and Baghdad are meanwhile suspended until April 30th. For the rest, the airline plans to operate its network to Europe, Southeast Asia and Africa as normal.
QATAR AIRWAYS continues to expand its offering, which is expected to grow to over 120 destinations on its global network by mid-May, and then to 150 destinations from mid-June. This, for a flight schedule that will be valid until September 15th. Currently, the Qatari company serves Paris – with a daily flight on an A350 – London or New York, but also around twenty metropolitan areas in Europe and a large number of cities in Asia.
Other destinations will be added soon, including Nice and London Gatwick from 16 May. In parallel, several European cities will be connected to Doha from 16 June, including Brussels, Düsseldorf, Lisbon, Oslo, Prague and Zagreb. Also from mid-June, the Qatari airline will resume its links with Middle Eastern cities, whether Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Bahrain and Kuwait, or Baghdad and Damascus.See his website).
SAUDIA dedicates a page from its website where travellers can check the status of their flight. Since April 11, the Saudi company has notably partially resumed its flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Amman.
Middle Eastern Companies
EGYPT AIR is suspending some of its flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Amman, Beirut, Doha, Dammam, Bahrain, Baghdad, Erbil and Kuwait until April 20th.
EL AL is gradually returning to its usual flight schedule, increasing its offering to nearly 40 destinations served from and to Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Some routes had initially already been offered, namely from Paris, London, Milan, Rome and Athens in Europe, and from New York (JFK and Newark), Miami and Los Angeles in the United States. Marseille has been added to nearly thirty European cities – Amsterdam, Barcelona, Batumi, Berlin, Bucharest, Budapest, Krakow, Frankfurt, Larnaca, Lisbon, Madrid, Milan, Moscow, Munich, Paphos, Prague, Rhodes, Sofia, Thessaloniki, Tbilisi, Vienna, Warsaw and Zurich – in addition to three destinations in Asia – Bangkok, Phuket and Tokyo – and Boston in the United States.
MIDDLE EAST AIRLINES (MEA) continues to operate at Beirut Airport. In particular, the Lebanese airline has resumed its flights to and from Abu Dhabi and Doha, and will increase its flights to Baghdad. In parallel, MEA will reinstate some previously cancelled flights to Amman, Riyadh and Paris, with the return of its mid-day flight.
ROYAL JORDANIAN is proposing an almost normal flight schedule at Amman airport, particularly for serving major European cities, including Paris. Flynas, Ethiopian Airlines, and Fly Arabia also serve the Jordanian capital, recently joined by Emirates and Etihad.
American and Asian companies
American Airlines, Delta, United and Southwest Airlines have all increased their checked baggage fees on domestic and short-haul flights by 10$. United has also announced a fare increase of 15% to 20% to offset rising oil prices.
AIR ASIA X has introduced a fuel surcharge of 20% and has increased its pricesbetween 30% and 40% depending on the sector.
__OPENROUTER_FAILED__ Fuel/Kerosene Surcharge: The airline has updated its checked baggage policy for domestic flights and on flights to the United States, Mexico, and Central America. It will cost $45$ for the first bag and $60$ for standard economy fares, with passengers on Flex economy fares still seeing their first checked bag free, but paying $60 $ for the second.
Furthermore, Radio Canada echoes the company's confirmation of the suspension of its flights to New York JFK from Toronto and Montreal between 1er June and October 25. But Air Canada will continue to serve NYC with 34 daily flights, down from 38 previously, from six Canadian cities to La Guardia and Newark. Furthermore, as the FIFA World Cup in the United States, Canada, and Mexico approaches, Air Canada has abandoned the idea of launching a Montreal-Guadalajara line in Mexico, which was due to begin on June 2nd.
Air India is resuming its services to Muscat, Riyadh, and Jeddah, but has suspended its routes to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and other UAE airports, as well as to Doha, Dammam, Bahrain, and Kuwait, Salalah in Oman, and Tel Aviv. Nevertheless, the Indian airline, along with its low-cost carrier Air India Express, will be able to offer flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Sharjah outside its usual schedule.
Fuel/Kerosene Surcharge: The company introduced an early April fuel surcharge ranging from 3 to 9 euros on domestic flights, depending on their distance, but also on international flights. This amounts to 50 $ to the Middle East, 100 $ to China and Southeast Asia, 205 $ to Europe and 280 $ to North America and Australia.
CATHAY PACIFIC has stopped its flights to and from Dubai and Riyadh until June 30. Fuel/Kerosene Surcharge: The Hong Kong-based company has introduced a fuel surcharge for its flights to Europe, ranging from $150 to $200, effective from the 1st.er April. And could be forced to review its policy soon. « We will review and adjust the fuel surcharge every two weeks to better reflect fluctuations in the price of jet fuel, both upwards and downwards. —explained the company. At the same time, Cathay Pacific will reduce the frequency of its flights to many Asian destinations by the end of June.
Delta Air Lines has suspended its New York-Tel Aviv and Atlanta-Tel Aviv routes until 5 September. The Boston-Tel Aviv route, which was initially scheduled to launch at the end of October, has also been postponed. As part of its flight schedule reduction due to rising kerosene prices, the company is pushing back the launch of the summer route from Detroit to Reykjavík Keflavík from 7 May to 7 July.
CHINA AIRLINES has reduced its flight offer by 1.5%, removing some flights to London, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore or Tokyo.
China Southern will reduce its flight schedule to Australia and the Pacific until the end of September to limit its kerosene consumption. Auckland, Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney: for all these destinations widely served from Guangzhou, one or two weekly flights will be cancelled.
MALAYSIA AIRLINES will reduce its offering by 4% until the end of June, by reducing the number of frequencies offered to several Asian destinations such as Bangalore, Bangkok Suvarnabhumi, Ho Chi Minh City, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Melbourne, Seoul Incheon, Shanghai Pu Dong or Singapore.
SCOOT, the low-cost airline of Singapore Airlines, is adjusting its flight schedule to Asian destinations, reducing it by nearly 6% until the end of May.
VIETJET AIR reduces its offering by 20% on its routes from Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City or Da Nang to major Asian metropolises.
QANTAS has announced a fare increase to incorporate " significant increases in the price of kerosene If the Australian company is to reduce its capacity by 5% on domestic flights in May and June by reducing frequencies between the country's major cities, on the other hand it will increase its long-haul flights to meet the demand of European travellers, with more flights to Paris and Rome.
