For years, the Gulf airlines have used their global hubs strategy to take some of their Asian traffic from European carriers. And vice versa. But now the war in the Gulf, with Iran's regular attacks on its neighbours, has shaken - provisionally, in principle - the foundations of the European airline industry. the global turntable model such as Abu Dhabi, Doha and Dubai airports. Travellers now want to avoid the region and prefer direct flights. Although there has been a limited recovery in traffic from the United Arab Emirates.
This has led to an increase in direct flights between the two continents by Asian and European airlines. The latter were in fact the first to announce an increase in their frequencies, notably by redeploying aircraft previously assigned to Middle East routes.
Within the Lufthansa group, capacity has been redirected from the Gulf to Asia. Lufthansa has indicated that it will very quickly increase its seat capacity on flights between Frankfurt and Munich and Delhi, Shanghai and Singapore. These routes are experiencing strong booking momentum as travellers seek alternatives to the routes previously operated via the Gulf. Its subsidiary Austrian Airlines has already increased its frequencies between Vienna and Bangkok.
Air France is offering a series of additional flights from Paris CDG to Bangkok, Delhi and Singapore until 15 March. For its part, KLM is offering flights to Hyderabad from Amsterdam for the first time this summer.
Additional flights and new routes
On the Asian side, the three largest airlines to Europe - Singapore Airlines, Thai Airways International and Vietnam Airlines - have all announced that they are maintaining all their frequencies and services to Europe. As has Air India, which has also added extra flights to Europe.
For its part Malaysia Airlines has begun offering additional special flights from Kuala Lumpur to its two European hubs of London Heathrow and Paris CDG. According to Amirul Rizal bin Abdul Rahim, Director General of the Malaysian Tourism Board, who was present at the ITB Berlin tourism trade fair, discussions are being held within the government to push the national airline to serve more cities in Europe.
Meanwhile, Indonesia's national airline Garuda is relaunching the Amsterdam-Jakarta route, offering up to three weekly frequencies in July. Here too, Indonesia's Minister of Tourism, Widiyanti Putri Wardhana, speaking at the ITB Berlin, said that Garuda's strategy was to offer more direct flights to Europe.
Vietnam Airlines announced back in February that it would be operating three flights a week between Amsterdam and Hanoi from 16 June. The situation in the Gulf is bound to make this new route even more attractive...
Kuala Lumpur will be celebrating a major comeback this winter: that of Lufthansa, which will be offering a non-stop flight five times a week from Frankfurt from October.
The war is also leading to the emergence of new alternative hubs for transit passengers. This is particularly the case for airports in India and Central Asia. Uzbek airline Centrum Air plans to launch direct flights between Tashkent and Frankfurt and between Tashkent and Copenhagen in spring 2026. Air Astana, one of the largest air operators in the region, is also being considered.
However, these new alternatives and routes cannot slow the rise in fares on the Europe-Asia route for the time being. Analysts believe that the current situation highlights the heavy dependence of global air transport on the Gulf hubs. And it raises questions about the future economic model that will emerge once the situation has calmed down.
