Airlines are avoiding Iranian and Lebanese airspace and postponing flights to Israel and Lebanon, raising fears of a regional confrontation following the deaths of prominent members of the terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah earlier this week.
Singapore Airlines has ceased flying across Iranian airspace as of early Friday morning and is adopting other routes, citing safety as its primary concern, according to a statement to Reuters.
Taiwan's EVA Air and China Airlines both seemed to avoid Iran airspace for flights to Amsterdam on Friday after previously flying over Iran, according to Flightradar24 data.
The airlines did not immediately reply to a request for comment on the route modifications.
OpsGroup, a membership-based group that exchanges flight risk information, issued an advisory advising traffic between Asia and Europe to avoid Iranian and Iraqi airspace.
Many airlines, including those in the United States and Europe, have already avoided flying over Iran, particularly after Iran and Israel launched reciprocal missile and drone assaults in April.
According to Flightradar24, Singapore Airlines' aircraft to London Heathrow early on Friday proceeded north of Iran through Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan rather than going through Iran as it did the previous day.
On Friday, however, a substantial number of airlines continued to fly over Iran, including United Arab Emirates carriers Etihad, Emirates, and FlyDubai, as well as Qatar Airways and Turkish Airlines.
Air India, Germany's Lufthansa Group, United Airlines and Delta Air, and Italy's ITA Airways have all announced the suspension of flights to Tel Aviv in the last two days.
Airlines have also begun canceling and postponing flights to Beirut, Lebanon, following a strike in Israel's Golan Heights on Saturday. Israel attributed the incident on Lebanon's militant organization Hezbollah, which denied involvement.
On Thursday, Canada issued a caution to Canadian aircraft to avoid Lebanese airspace for one month owing to the risk of military activities to aviation.
For the last month, Britain has warned pilots about the threat of anti-aircraft weapons and military operations in Lebanon's airspace.
If an all-out war breaks out in the Middle East, OpsGroup predicts that civil aviation will face the risk of drones and missiles crossing airways, as well as an increase in the risk of GPS spoofing—a growing phenomenon in Lebanon and Israel in which militaries and other actors broadcast signals that trick a plane's GPS system into thinking it is somewhere else.
