More than a third of India’s international air traffic was grounded on Sunday, as Iranian missile and drone attacks shut down the Gulf’s three major aviation hubs, cutting off the corridor through which the vast majority of India’s westbound flights — to the Middle East, Europe and the east coast of North America — pass.
The Ministry of Civil Aviation said a total of 350 flights operated by Indian airlines were canceled on Sunday and that the government was “coordinating closely with airlines, airport operators and other stakeholders to proactively monitor the situation and facilitate necessary support to passengers”.
A June 2025 report by the International Air Transport Association concluded that the Middle East accounts for 39.2% of India’s total international passenger traffic – 14.9 million passengers in 2024, more than any other region. The corridor passes through a group of FIRs that were closed indefinitely late on Saturday.
By the time the last of the NOTAMs — the official aviation instruments that announce airspace closures — were issued, they covered an area of sky normally used for westbound traffic. Tehran has been closed since Saturday afternoon, with the warning increasing the risk of conflict over international waters in the Persian Gulf and the Sea of Oman. Baghdad followed within hours. “The closure of the FIR in Baghdad at 13:10 IST on February 28 is of special significance for Indian airlines, as it directly closes the northern corridor which is normally used to fly over India and Europe,” an official said. Kuwait, Bahrain, Doha, Jeddah and Damascus closed their doors in quick succession.
These closures have choked an already restricted air corridor for Indian airlines: Pakistani airspace has been closed to Indian airlines for eleven months, eliminating a key route west. The Gulf corridor – through the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Bahrain and beyond – was the main alternative.
With both now unavailable, airlines have been forced to resort to a longer southern arc. Flights now turn southwest over the Arabian Sea, enter via southern Oman, pass through mandatory waypoints in Jeddah airspace – themselves operating under restrictions, with passing aircraft restricted to specific waypoints – and cut west over the Red Sea and Egypt before reaching the Mediterranean.
This has increased flying time, and airlines are exploring what officials have described as “southern deviations or technical stops” as the only viable options remaining. The transfer adds between one and two hours to the journey times.
The Air India service flew between Delhi and London on 28 February on this southern arc, arriving 50 minutes later than the previous day’s flight on the same route. The airline, the only Indian carrier to operate trans-Atlantic services, said its flights to New York’s JFK and Newark airports are now operating with a technical stopover at Rome’s Fiumicino Airport – a refueling stop made necessary due to the extra range required by the southern diversion.
IndiGo has canceled around 360 flights till March 3.
Selected services in Europe have been completely cancelled: Amritsar-Birmingham, Delhi-Zurich, Delhi-Copenhagen and return flights have been halted on 2 March. “All other flights to North America and Europe will operate as scheduled using alternative routes through available airspace in the Middle East, which is expected to increase flight times,” the airline said.
Experts said that the financial losses are being counted. “The weekly impact on Indian and international airlines flying to and from India is a very conservative estimate $“Currently, Pakistani, Iranian and UAE airspace are closed, and this prevents almost all flights to Europe, the US and flights to the Arabian Gulf,” said Mark De Martin, CEO of aviation consultancy Martin. “The chances of improvement in closing the airspace for at least a week are less.”
