Australians heading to Europe may need to reconsider their travel plans for the next five months as the Middle East conflict disrupts major aviation hubs, according to experts.
Major commercial flight corridors across the Middle East have been almost entirely closed after days of drone and rocket attacks following US and Israeli strikes on Iran.
Professor Ron Bartsch, chairman of Avlaw Consulting and former head of safety and regulation at Qantas, has warned that Australia will be among the hardest hit by the disruptions, as flights to Europe typically pass through Middle Eastern airspace.
Hundreds of Aussies are expected to head to the northern hemisphere in the coming months for the European summer.
‘Out of all the peripheral countries that have been affected by this, Australian travellers have probably been more affected because, particularly in the last two decades, Australia has used the Middle East as its primary way of reaching Europe,’ he said.
‘If it was purely just the airspace being restricted, then airlines can reroute their flights and divert from those areas as they have done with Ukraine air space for the length of the war, but situations where hubs are involved can cause real problems, because aircraft primarily from Australia haven’t got the ability to fly directly from Australia to Europe.
‘What’s going to happen now is that obviously Qantas and Virgin’s sharing arrangements will try to deviate more towards other alternate routes through Bangkok, Singapore, Hong Kong and the Philippines in order to reach Europe.’
Professor Bartsch also warned travellers it could cause ‘months’ of skyrocketing airfares and delays.
Australia will be among the countries hardest hit by travel disruptions caused by the Middle East conflict
Dozens of flights from Australia have been cancelled this week due to the escalating conflict in the Middle East. Pictured are stranded travellers at Sydney Airport
‘The longer this military operation goes on means airfares will increase accordingly. The cost of aviation fuel is going to increase and also because the number of flights will be restricted through supply and demand … that’s going to have a knock-on effect to Australian travellers for at least the next four to five months I’d say,’ he said.
The federal government says it will update travel advice based on the best available information as the ‘unpredictable’ conflict continues to unfold.
‘The conflict has spread much more quickly and much more widely than we anticipated,’ Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong told Sunrise on Thursday.
‘I think most governments anticipated that no one would have anticipated that in the first 72 hours Iran would strike nine countries.
‘No one would have anticipated that Iran would have responded in the way it has, which it has not done before, which is to attack travel hubs such as the United Arab Emirates.
‘People do need to think very carefully about their travel plans and continue to look at the advice that we provide.’
Despite the uncertainty, Aussies with existing booked European holidays and flights via the Middle East are urged not to cancel them.
‘You will lose the consumer rights that you have available to you, such as a full refund,’ Australian Travel Industry Association chief executive Dean Long warned.
Penny Wong said the ‘unpredictable’ Middle East conflict has spread much more quickly and much more widely than anticipated
A planeload of Aussies stranded in the Middle East arrived in Sydney late Wednesday night
Mr Long urged travellers with booked flights to wait for the airline to contact them.
‘You’ll have to check individually with those airlines where you can get a full refund or a change to the end of March for no fee, but people should go to the relevant airline app or the travel agency app to look at those options before doing anything,’ he added.
‘You will be out of pocket if you do it the wrong way.’
It comes as the first flight from Dubai to Sydney since war broke out in the Middle East safely landed on Australian soil overnight.
An Emirates Airbus A380-861, capable of carrying more than 400 passengers, left Dubai at 2am on Wednesday and landed in Sydney at 10.24pm, sparking emotional reunions at the airport.
Three more flights to bring stranded Aussies home are scheduled to leave the UAE on Thursday.
They include two flights from Dubai bound for Sydney and Melbourne.
The third is from Abu Dhabi to Sydney.
‘I just want to emphasise they are always possible to cancellation at the last minute,’ Wong said.
There are 24,000 Australians in the UAE, with about 115,000 across the Middle East.
Six crisis response teams are on their way to the region to provide extra consular support in response to ‘unprecedented’ demand.
