Indian budget carrier cancels 97 Middle East flights amid airspace closures
Dhaka: IndiGo has canceled 97 flights to Middle East destinations as airspace restrictions tightened around Dubai and other Gulf airports. The budget carrier, India's largest by domestic market share, operates extensive connections from Delhi, Mumbai, and Bangalore to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha, making the cancellations a significant blow to India-Gulf traffic.
Air India announced plans to operate 80 services on affected routes, though no start date has been confirmed and no specific routes have been identified. The carrier's wide-body fleet provides operational flexibility that IndiGo's all-narrow-body operation lacks.
Several international carriers have also suspended services. Lufthansa halted flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Amman, and Dammam through March 15, with subsidiary services to Tel Aviv suspended until April 2. KLM canceled Dubai flights through March 28 due to slot constraints and crew repositioning challenges. Philippine Airlines canceled three route pairs—Manila-Doha, Manila-Dubai, and Manila-Riyadh—through March 17.
The total disruption has reached approximately 37,000 cancellations since the conflict began, approaching COVID-19 pandemic peaks. The Russia-Ukraine war closed significant airspace but left Gulf hubs operational; this crisis is fundamentally different, as the hubs themselves are the disruption zone.
Gulf hubs handle the majority of India-Europe and Southeast Asia-Europe connecting traffic. With Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Doha simultaneously offline, no spare system capacity exists to absorb displaced passengers. European hubs like Frankfurt and Amsterdam are already near slot limits, and routing passengers via Europe adds six to twelve hours to many journeys, making numerous itineraries commercially unviable.
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