Syria28 June, 20263 min read
U.S. And Israel Strikes Against Iran Trigger Airline Cancellations To Tel Aviv, Beirut, Damascus
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Major carriers canceled flights to the Middle East after strikes on Iran. Air France and Lufthansa suspended flights to the region.
Flights suspended after Iran strikes
After strikes launched by the United States and Israel against Iran on Saturday, February 28, many airlines suspended flights to the Middle East, with the Israeli Ministry of Transport announcing the closure of Israeli airspace to civilian flights and asking travelers not to go to the airports until further notice. Ouest-France described a “cascading cancellation of flights to the Middle East” tied to the closure of airspace in the region on Saturday, February 28, 2026. In response to the same security situation, Air France announced it had annulled flights to Tel-Aviv and Beyrouth and said it would “communiquera ultérieurement” on its schedule for the coming days.
Lufthansa said it would suppress flights from and to Tel Aviv, Beyrouth, Amman, Erbil and Téhéran until 7 mars, and it also said its group airlines would suspend flights to and from Dubaï and Abu Dhabi until dimanche. The Syrian national carrier Syrian Air “a annulé tous ses vols jusqu’à nouvel ordre, de et vers les aéroports de Damas et Alep,” according to Le Figaro.
Airspace closures and route changes
Le Figaro said the Iranian airspace was closed as well as those of Qatar, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, while the airspace of the United Arab Emirates was partially and temporarily closed “just as in Syria, according to AFP.” The same Le Figaro account said Qatar Airways suspended “tous ses vols au départ de Doha” after the strikes, and it cited the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority’s announcement of “la suspension temporaire du trafic aérien” as a precaution. In Syria, the aviation disruption was paired with continued changes to regional connectivity, as the Syrian General Authority for Civil Aviation announced the start of regular flights of the UAE-based Air Arabia effective from the 4th of next month (July) between Sharjah and Aleppo.
The West Asian report said Kuwait’s Jazeera Airways was ready to launch regular and direct flights between Kuwait and Aleppo starting June 25, and it described Aleppo International Airport as seeing a gradual return of regional and international flights. It also noted that Aleppo International Airport welcomed its first domestic test flight after the fall of the Assad regime on December 18, 2024, and that it reopened to international flights on March 18, 2025.
Syrian Airlines’ return to the sky
As flights resumed to international destinations, Al-Jazeera Net reported that Syrian Airlines released a promotional film titled “The Sky Returned to Us,” framing the resumption of its flights as a shift from fear to hope. The Al-Jazeera Net piece described the film’s opening scenes in Syrian neighborhoods and said the roar of a plane was presented as belonging to a civilian aircraft belonging to Syrian Airlines and flying securely. It also quoted a viewer who wrote: “This sentence makes me cry and touches the heart of every Syrian expatriate forced to leave his homeland.”
In parallel, the same Al-Jazeera Net account tied the emotional response to the “aerophobia” left by bombardment, including a resident in Europe who described how he would automatically feel tense and raise his head warily toward the sky every time he heard the sound of a plane. The West Asian report on Aleppo’s airport activity added that Aleppo International Airport is “located about 10 km east of downtown Aleppo” and that it has a main runway 2,910 meters long and 45 meters wide, as the region’s air links expand.