British Airways and KLM among airlines avoiding Iranian airspace over shootdown

Edmund Heaphy
·Finance and news reporter
Updated
Two Boeing-777 aircrafts of KLM and Malaysia Airlines seen at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, Netherlands. (Photo by: aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
Aircraft belonging to KLM and Malaysia Airlines, both of which will avoid Iranian-controlled airspace. Photo: aviation-images.com/Universal Images Group via Getty Images

British Airways, Dutch airline KLM (AFLYY), Australia’s Qantas Airways (QAN.AX), Singapore Airlines (SINGY), and Malaysia Airlines are among several carriers that have said they will avoid Iranian-controlled airspace following the shooting down of a US drone.

On Thursday, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) issued an emergency order, banning US-registered planes from flying in large swathes of the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

Earlier on Thursday, an Iranian surface-to-air missile shot down a massive, unmanned, and unarmed US drone known as a Navy Global Hawk.

Warning of “heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the region,” the FAA said there was “an inadvertent risk to US civil aviation operations and potential for miscalculation or misidentification.”

The FAA noted that the nearest civil aircraft was only 45 nautical miles away from the drone when it was shot down.

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“There were numerous civil aviation aircraft operating in the area at the time of the intercept,” it said.

British Airways said in a statement on Friday that it was following FAA guidance to avoid the area and that its planes would use alternative routes.

“Our safety and security team are constantly liaising with authorities around the world as part of their comprehensive risk assessment into every route we operate,” a spokesperson said.

KLM announced it would not fly in Iranian-controlled airspace on Friday, but did not comment further.

The ban, which the FAA said would be in effect until further notice, followed the decision by United Airlines to suspend flights between New Jersey’s Newark airpot and Mumbai in India after a safety review.

Several of the world’s top long-haul airlines operate from the Persian Gulf. But a number of them — including Etihad, Emirates, and Qatar Airways — had not yet made a decision on whether to suspend flights in the region.

Etihad announced that it had activated “contingency plans,” however, and said it was “carefully monitoring the current situation.”

“We will decide what further action is required after carefully evaluating the FAA directive to U.S. carriers.”