Airlines suspend flights as Middle East tensions heighten

With Iran's missile and drone strike on Israel over the weekend, airlines have responded by cancelling and rerouting certain routes as the tensions in the Middle East continue to heighten. Reuters reported that some routes continued to be impacted despite Israel, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon reopening their airspaces on April 14. The Middle East saw Israel's El Al Airlines had cancelled 15 flights scheduled over the weekend while a smaller Israeli carrier Arkia had reportedly said it was in the process of adjusting its flight schedule. Additionally, some Fly Dubai flights were impacted by the closed airspaces. For Europe, KLM cancelled all flights to and from Tel Aviv until April 16, Finnair suspended operations in Iranian airspace until further notice and may result in some delays on flights from Doha, SAS had rerouted one of its flights over the weekend, Iberia Express had cancelled flights on April 14 and 15, easyJet had reportedly paused operations to and from Tel Aviv until April 21, and Wizz Air had cancelled most of its flight to and from Tel Aviv over the the weekend through to April 15 (Monday). United Airlines cancelled flights to Tel Aviv on April 15 and flights from Washington Dulles Airport to Jordan on April 16. Air Canada had cancelled flights to Tel Aviv on April 15 and 16. China Southern Airlines had cancelled flights to Iran on April 14 while Air India had cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv until April 20. IndiGo and Vistara had altered some of their flight paths. Australia's Qantas Airways had rerouted flights between Perth and London.