WASHINGTON: International airlines steered clear of Iraq after Washington banned American 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, favoured parallel routes via Iran instead, according to real-time flight tracking websites.
Flightradar24.com indicated a long stream of airliners Friday evening Middle East time, flying single file through western Iranian — 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, added Daniel Baker of US-based FlightAware.com.
“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 told AFP.
The Federal Aviation Administration in Washington (FAA) banned all US civilian flights over Iraq just hours after American 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 Federal 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.
AFP
