
Airlines disrupted by Iran-Israel conflict - Region
The United States carried out strikes against Iranian nuclear sites overnight Saturday to Sunday after over a week of deadly missile exchanges between Israel and Iran. Following that, Iran retaliated, attacking the United States by targeting the Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, the largest US military installation in the Middle East.
Here is the latest airline situation:
Middle east airlines
Bahrain and Kuwait have reopened their airspace following brief precautionary closures earlier Monday, their state news agencies announced, as regional tensions ease slightly after Iranian strikes.
In the United Arab Emirates, Dubai Airports resumed operations, according to the Dubai Media Office. However, authorities cautioned that passengers may still experience delays or cancellations due to earlier disruptions.
Flightradar24 added that more than 10 flights earlier had to divert from the UAE.
Meanwhile, Oman Air has temporarily suspended all flights to and from Manama, Dubai and Kuwait due to escalating regional tensions, the airline announced.
In a statement, the airline said it was "monitoring the situation closely" and would resume operations once it was deemed safe.
EgyptAir also announced the cancellation of all flights between Cairo and several cities in the Gulf due to ongoing regional tensions and the closure of airspace in multiple countries.
The airline said the decision would remain in effect until the situation stabilizes.
Before the Iranian retaliation, Qatar temporarily suspended air traffic around the country, its foreign ministry said. "The competent authorities announce the temporary suspension of air traffic in the country's airspace, as part of a set of precautionary measures taken based on developments in the region," the foreign ministry said.
European airlines
British Airways cancelled flights between London's Heathrow Airport and Dubai and Doha on Sunday following the US strikes on Iran.
The airline said Monday it was scheduled to operate those routes as normal, though there were some cancellations ahead of a clutch of evening flights.
Air France halted flights to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates until at least Tuesday inclusive, the airline said.
It also extended the suspension of the Paris-Tel Aviv route until July 14.
Flights of Air France's low-cost carrier Transavia from Paris to Beirut have been suspended until June 30 while the Tel Aviv route is closed until September 7.
Germany's Lufthansa group, whose other airlines include Swiss, Austrian and ITA, has suspended flights to the Middle East until June 30.
The Amman and Erbil, Iraq, routes were also suspended until July 11.
The group will not fly to Tel Aviv and Tehran will until July 31 and is also avoiding the air space of countries involved in the conflict.
Greece's Aegean Airlines has stopped Tel Aviv flights until July 12. Its Amman, Beirut and Erbil routes are closed until June 28.
Turkish airline Pegasus has scrapped flights to Iraq, Jordan and Lebanon until June 30, and Iran until July 30.
Flag carrier Turkish Airlines on Monday cancelled its remaining flights for the day to Bahrain, Dammam, Doha, Dubai, Kuwait, Abu Dhabi and Muscat.
No Turkish Airlines flights to Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran are available before July 1.
Finnair meanwhile confirmed it was suspending flights to Doha. The carrier is also staying out of the airspace of Iran, Iraq, Syria and Israel.
US and Canadian airlines
United Airlines has warned passengers that flights to and from Dubai scheduled between June 18 and July 3 may be affected and is offering no-fee ticket changes under certain conditions due to Middle East unrest.
The US airline has implemented the same flexibility for Tel Aviv flights between June 13 and August 1, allowing customers to rebook for other major European cities.
Air Canada has temporarily suspended its daily non-stop service from Toronto to Dubai starting June 18 and warned the suspension could be extended.
Travel via a European stopover on a partner airline remains possible, according to its website.
American Airlines is allowing customers to change their bookings to Doha without fees for travel originally scheduled between June 19 and July 20.
Asian airlines
Singapore Airlines has cancelled eight flights to Dubai -- two per day from Sunday through Wednesday.
*This story was edited by Ahram Online
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At what was billed as an 'historic' presidential summit, hastily put together in Alaska on Friday afternoon, the optics were as clear and overshadowing as the vast Chugach mountains glistening over Anchorage in the summer sun. US President Donald Trump literally applauded Vladimir Putin as he walked along a red carpet laid out in his honor by genuflecting US troops. After warmly greeting the Russian president, whose full-scale invasion of Ukraine has so far left more than a million people dead and injured, a US B-2 stealth bomber, flanked by fighter jets, roared overhead. But Putin seemed unintimidated by the spectacle. This was, after all, his long-awaited coming out of international isolation party; a political gift bestowed upon the Kremlin strongman, who is indicted for war crimes at the International Criminal Court, by a US president who called him his friend, 'Vladimir.' Later, in the windowless press room on Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson near Anchorage, where the White House and Kremlin press pools had gathered wrongly expecting a joint news conference, we found ourselves positioned alongside an energetic, tight-suited reporter from one of the radically conservative news networks who seem to vie for Trump's favor. 'Trump is determined to exit Biden's war,' the reporter confided to me between live shots, referring to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that began in 2022 when Joe Biden was US president. 'But the Ukrainians and the Europeans are in his way,' the reporter added, seemingly frustrated, as Trump, at the reluctance to accept any deal at any price. Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump meet at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images The comment points to an even bigger, though less obvious, Putin victory than merely returning to the top table of international diplomacy: In pursuit of a quick peace deal in Ukraine, the US president appears to have taken Russia's side on key issues in the conflict. A ceasefire, for example. Ukraine and its European supporters have long argued that halting the violence must be an essential first step in peace talks. Trump, who had earlier accepted that, has apparently changed his mind, posting on his Truth Social platform about going for a full peace deal instead, a long-standing preference of the Kremlin, which sees no benefit in halting offensive operations at a time when it believes Russian forces have the upper hand. As President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine heads to Washington, flanked by European leaders, for direct and urgent talks with Trump, this about-face by the White House will be at the forefront of concerns and negotiations – alongside demands by Putin, and perhaps Trump too, for Kyiv to withdrawal from swathes of strategic territory in the Donbas region of Ukraine that has been annexed by Russia but not yet conquered. That may ultimately be a red line neither Ukraine nor Europe is willing to cross, and their leaders are likely to push back hard in Washington on these territorial demands. But saying no to a quick deal that Trump supports, perhaps thoughts of a Nobel Peace Prize within his grasp, Ukraine and Europe risk casting themselves at the White House – not the Kremlin – as the real obstacles to peace. The fact major territorial concession is being discussed at all is itself, from the Kremlin's point of view, yet another important win. While Ukraine and its Western backers haggle over how much more of Donbas Kyiv should surrender, the territory Russia has already captured by brute force is barely mentioned at all. Ukrainian servicemen fire a multiple rocket launch system towards Russian troops near the frontline town of Pokrovsk, in Ukraine's Donetsk region, on June 8. Anatolii Stepanov/Reuters In the days and the weeks ahead, as the success or failure of peace talks inevitably dominate the news agenda, it's worth considering not just what Putin can get, but what Trump wants. The anticlimactic Alaskan summit was, perhaps, a clue. Watching it firsthand, it was striking how deferential a usually domineering Trump appeared, even allowing Putin – a foreign guest on American soil – to speak first in the joint statements to the press. The US president stood listening quietly at his podium for several minutes as the Kremlin leader held forth on Alaska's Russian and American history before delivering his own impressions of the day's meetings. It was almost as if Putin, who confidently suggested Trump visit Moscow – in a rare English-language remark from the Russian president – was accepting Trump back into the fold, not the other way around; reintroducing him to the world from Alaska as a fellow strongman, with immense power, many thousands of miles away from the petty concerns of Ukraine and Europe.