KARACHI: At least 11 international flights awaiting departure have been stranded at airports across the country for the past three days, as the crisis spirals in the Middle East following the US-Israel attack on Iran.
Israel and the United States jointly launched strikes on Iran on Saturday, martyring Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and plunging the region into a renewed military confrontation as President Donald Trump vowed to destroy Tehran’s missile arsenal and prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon.
Tehran responded with a sweeping barrage of missiles targeting Gulf states and Israel, marking a sharp escalation in regional hostilities.
After the strikes, several flight operations were disrupted across the region.
A foreign airline flight has been awaiting departure for three days at Multan airport, while two other internationally operated airlines remain grounded at Sialkot Airport.
Meanwhile, overflying through Pakistani and Afghan airspace has increased several times over as the airlines reroute due to airspace closures across Middle East.
According to FlightRadar data, multiple routes passing through Pakistan and Afghanistan have become among the busiest corridors in the world.
Global air travel remained heavily disrupted on Sunday as continued air strikes kept major Middle Eastern airports, including Dubai, the world’s busiest international hub, closed in one of the sharpest aviation shocks in recent years.
Key transit airports including Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the UAE, and Doha in Qatar, were shut or severely restricted as much of the region’s airspace remained closed, with the Gulf grappling with uncertainty.
The airport closures have rippled far beyond the Middle East. Dubai and neighbouring Doha sit at the crossroads of east-west air travel, funnelling long-haul traffic between Europe and Asia through tightly scheduled networks of connecting flights.
With those hubs idle, aircraft and crews remained stranded out of position, disrupting airline schedules worldwide.
Airlines across Europe, Asia and the Middle East cancelled or rerouted flights to avoid closed or restricted airspace, lengthening journeys and driving up fuel costs. The disruption has been intensified by the loss of Iranian and Iraqi overflight routes, which had grown more important since the Russia-Ukraine war forced airlines to avoid both countries’ airspace.
The Middle East airspace closures were squeezing airlines into narrower corridors, with fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan adding a further risk, said Ian Petchenik, communications director at Flightradar24.
