Halved routes to the Middle East
From 1,500 to the current 800 decades per day; growing instead, intra-European ones
Key points
Air routes to the Middle East still reduced, but European traffic holds up. The war in Iran will continue to weigh on European air transport during the summer. According to reports by Eurocontrol (European Organisation for the Safety of Air Navigation), the connections between Europe and the Middle East have been diminished. At the beginning of the year there were 1,500 flights per day; with the outbreak of the conflict the average in March plummeted to 640, but then partially recovered: in April it reached 730 and in the first weeks of May it exceeded 800 flights per day.
Turkey, Europe's main gateway to the Middle East, is the country that has suffered the biggest reductions, followed by the UK, Germany and Italia. At Italian airports, flights to the area fell by 59% in the first month of the war (Malpensa -67%, Fiumicino -53%).
The companies
The hardest hit airlines are those from the Gulf such as Qatar Airways (-88% of flights in the first month of the war), Emirates (-37%) and Flydubai (-79%). For European carriers, flights to the airports at risk remain suspended and, according to Reuters, are expected to reopen between summer and autumn. Lufthansa and Wizz Air are expected to resume flights to Tel Aviv from the end of May, while other routes remain blocked throughout the summer. Ita Airways will restart connections to Tel Aviv and Riyadh in July. The British group Iag will maintain only one daily flight to the main Middle East airports, while Air France has suspended its routes until the end of May and KLM until July.
No longer able to rely on Gulf airports as transit hubs, European airlines increased direct flights to Asia by 17% in April and May compared to last year. With summer approaching, intra-European flights also increased (+30% at the beginning of May compared to pre-war figures), to Eastern Europe (+81%) and to North America (+51%). This is seasonal growth, in line with or slightly above 2025 levels.
In the southern hemisphere, with the arrival of the austral winter, traffic from Europe slows down, but remains well above 2025 values: +10% flights to southern Africa and +7% to South America at the beginning of May. The two continents are confirmed as rising tourist destinations.
