Airlines fly over Afghanistan as Middle East becomes top risk Reuters

By Joanna Plucinska and Lisa Barrington

LONDON/SEOUL (Reuters) – Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa have increased their flights over Afghanistan after years of largely avoiding it now that conflict in the Middle East has made it seem a relatively safe option.

The carriers largely stopped transiting Afghanistan, which is on important routes between Asia and Europe, three years ago when the Taliban took control and air traffic control services ceased.

Those services have not yet resumed, but airlines increasingly consider the skies between Iran and Israel more risky than Afghan airspace. Many began to route through Iran and the Middle East after Russian skies were closed to most Western carriers when the war in Ukraine began in 2022.

“As conflicts have evolved, the calculation of usable airspace has changed. Airlines are looking to mitigate risk as much as possible and see overflying Afghanistan as the safer option given the current tensions between Iran and Israel,” Ian Petchenik, spokesman. for flight tracking organization Flightradar24, said.

There were more than seven times the number of flights over Afghanistan in the second week of August than in the same period a year ago, according to a Reuters analysis of FlightRadar24 data.

The shift began in mid-April during mutual missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel. Flight tracking data from that period shows that Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines (OTC:), British Airways and others began sending several flights a day over Afghanistan.

But the main increase has come since the killing of senior members of the militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah in late July raised concerns of a major escalation.

Some pilots are worried.

“You depend on your airline’s analysis. Every time I fly there, I don’t like the feeling of flying over a conflict zone where you don’t actually know what’s going on,” said Otjan de Bruin. , commercial pilot and head of the European Cockpit Association.

“It’s always safe enough until proven otherwise.”

Lufthansa Group told Reuters it had decided to resume flying over Afghan airspace from early July.

Other carriers that increased flights in April included Turkish Airlines, Thai Airways and the Air France-KLM group, the data showed.

“Based on actual security information, KLM and other airlines currently fly safely over Afghanistan only on certain routes and only at high altitudes,” KLM told Reuters.

British Airways, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and Singapore Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.

Taiwan’s EVA Air has been running since late July, flight tracking data shows. EVA told Reuters it chooses routes based on safety, the current international situation and flight advisories.

THE ROLE OF THE REGULATION

The route changes were facilitated by aviation regulators easing guidance on Afghanistan.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in early July that planes could fly at a lower altitude over a strip in northeastern Afghanistan, the Wakhan Corridor, which is used to cross from Tajikistan to Pakistan – opening up that route for several types of flights. .

A year earlier, the FAA lifted the overflight ban for the entire country, but said planes must remain above 32,000 feet (9,753.6 m) where surface-to-air weapons are considered less effective.

But few began using Afghanistan until April.

Although more traffic has used the airspace without incident, there is no guarantee of crew or passenger safety if a plane has to land, flight safety group OPSGROUP said in July.

In the absence of air traffic control, pilots crossing Afghanistan talk to nearby planes by radio, according to a protocol developed by the UN aviation body ICAO and the Civil Aviation Authority of Afghanistan.

European aviation safety regulator EASA said in a bulletin on conflict zones reissued in July that “extremist non-state actor groups remain active and could sporadically target aviation facilities in a number of ways.”

The industry is haunted by the memory of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014 as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.

COST AND CHOICE LIMITED

Airlines are under pressure to save money after the 2022 loss of many shorter routes through Russian airspace and as they rebuild from the pandemic.

There are few international rules dictating which areas of airspace are safe, and airline safety decisions are largely left to individual carriers.

If an airline cannot fly through Russia, Ukraine or Iran, central Afghanistan offers a more direct route to South Asia from Europe.

“This route saved us a lot of time and fuel,” OPSGROUP reported from a pilot in July who flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur via central Afghanistan.