Around 30 flights landed and 70 took off on Tuesday, mainly from airports in the United Arab Emirates, according to the Swedish air traffic website Flightradar24.
"I've seen many comments that 'now everything is starting to go back to normal,' but I think people are jumping to conclusions," says Mikael Robertsson, one of the founders of the site.
Looking at traffic from the seven major airports in the region (four in the United Arab Emirates, one each in Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain), he notes that Tuesday's 100 planes compare to a normal day of 3,400.
I haven't seen a single one heading north. Frankfurt and Warsaw are probably the closest.
More flights on Wednesday
He estimates that there will be slightly more flights taking off on Wednesday, perhaps 200–300.
We are still down to single-digit percentages of normal.
So far, 14,000 flights have been canceled since the US and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday, and Iran responded with its own counterattacks on countries in the region. Assuming about 160 passengers per plane, this means more than 2.2 million travelers are affected. Some airlines have canceled all their flights to the region for several weeks to come, a sign that they expect prolonged problems.
But these are airlines that don't have very many flights, maybe one to two a day to the region, he says.
"Looks tight"
In addition to all stranded travelers, both in the Gulf region and those who would have had a stopover there, others who normally fly over the airspace that is now closed are also affected. With the airspace over Ukraine also being closed, this has led to a significantly narrower and more congested air corridor than before.
It looks very tight. I don't think they'll be able to squeeze that many more flights into that corridor. The other option is to fly south, via India, Oman and Saudi Arabia. But I'm guessing that adds one to two hours to a trip between Europe and Asia.
