A lot of planes are stranded and the airlines are taking a financial hit, Boeing Global's president Brendan Nelson told NDTV on Thursday as many of the leading airlines have announced schedule changes, suspensions, cancellations with the Iran war escalating.
A conflict sparked Saturday with US-Israeli attacks on Iran that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has rapidly escalated, engulfing the region and drawing in global powers, while snarling shipping and energy markets.
Travellers from around the world have had their plans disrupted amid Iran's strikes on Gulf states following US-Israeli attacks.
The conflict has grounded most regular flights and shut shipping lanes, causing the biggest disruption to global travel since the Covid pandemic.
"Leaving aside the impact on the aviation industry, of course, this is a tragedy for many Iranians, for people that are living in the Middle East, and let us hope this comes to an end sooner rather than later," Brendan Nelson told NDTV.
"What happens in one part of the world, in this case, an event right across the Middle East, has global consequences. Indians themselves, of course, are directly impacted because of the necessity to travel often through the Middle East," he said.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said that of the more than 36,000 flights scheduled to fly to or from the Middle East, more than 20,000 had been cancelled since Saturday.
As airlines resumed limited flights out of hubs including Dubai and Riyadh, governments also chartered planes to bring home citizens affected by the turmoil, which stranded tens of thousands of travellers worldwide.
Passengers touching down at airports in Australia, France, Germany, India, Russia, Taiwan and beyond told of sleepless nights and days-long ordeals to get out of the Middle East when war erupted.
"The sooner this comes to an end, the less impactful it will be in a negative sense for the industry. But at the moment, we see that airlines are either not able to fly or having to avoid airspace in the Middle East. A lot of aircraft are stranded, so to speak, around the world. And we are doing everything we possibly can to support those customers. But the longer that it goes on, the more detrimental it will be to the industry because airlines are taking a financial hit," he said.
"It will have a negative impact on the earnings of the airlines that are directly impacted. And the longer that it goes on, the more significant that impact will be," he added.
As of Wednesday, Cirium data indicated that air traffic was virtually completely grounded in Qatar and Bahrain. In Israel, nearly three-quarters of flights were cancelled and just over two-thirds in the UAE.
The crucial Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of global oil transits, has been effectively closed and energy infrastructure across the Middle East hit.
As steeper prices filter through the economy, this could mean higher fares on airlines and other modes of transport.
