Source: Radio New Zealand
PUNIT PARANJPE / AFP
The conflict in the Middle East is continuing to disrupt global air traffic with nearly 4000 flights a day being cancelled across the region.
Limited flights out of Dubai and Doha were announced after airspace partially reopened on Wednesday morning.
However, hundreds of thousands of passengers were still being impacted, with major airport hubs remain largely out of action.
But how do airlines and other authorities decide when and where it’s safe to fly near a conflict zone?
UK-based aviation expert John Strickland told Nine to Nine it was very much dependant on the government and safety agencies.
“They could be global, such as United Nations, there’s an aviation body, ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation), which is affiliated with the UN.
“Of course, national security bodies, including representation of embassies and consulates and so on, military intelligence agencies.
“All of that has to be put together. Certainly, it is guided through a body like ICAO with the aim of sharing that information transparently as widely as possible and airlines take those briefings. They don’t make a judgement of their own.”
‘No airline would endeavour to make a commercial risk’
Strickland said airlines had reasonable intelligence by virtue of their size and resources it can tap into.
Others may be fully dependent on external safety agencies, he said.
Emirates cancelled flights through Doha and Dubai. Thierry Monasse
“But certainly, one thing I would say is no airline would endeavour to make a commercial risk, a punt if you like, to fly just because they had passengers to move,” he said.
“Nobody will do anything until they are given the maximum possible assurance that safety and security can be guaranteed for obviously the passengers and their crews as well.”
Strickland said questions over GPS interference and other navigation challenges in or near conflict zones were also considered.
“It has to be factored in as part of the audit, part of the safety checklist as to whether a flight operation can be undertaken safely or not,” he said.
“Indeed, whether it might be possible to operate, but a different route would have to be followed if those risks are known about in certain areas.”
Strickland said repositioning an aircraft and its crews to mitigate the challenges in the Middle East were complex and expensive.
“The complexity of getting aircraft and crews back to the right place is enormous … the first thing is once an aircraft is lost somewhere else, they’ve landed, even if it’s in a planned airport, once that crew has completed their flight, they are out of duty hours based on whatever national regulatory body they come under.
“Certainly, whether it’s New Zealand or Europe, for example, there are clear regulations in place about rest requirements … crews have to have rest. It means with many crews are not where they should be. They’re not available to start afresh from home at the home base to take up new operations.
“The aircraft have to be recovered back to base and undoubtedly cleaned and checked out before they can go back into service.”
Airlines count the cost
He said it took a number of days, and in such a military-induced challenged, it would take even longer, and be more expensive.
Strickland said airlines were also trying to provide accommodation to stranded passengers, which was a positive sign.
He said there were only a handful of flights currently operating, but remained a small fraction of their usual operations.
Strickland said while the level of disruption couldn’t compare to the Covid-19 pandemic – as it affected everyone globally – it was comparable to the 9/11 attacks.
“The hub airports in the Gulf, Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, and the airlines operating out of those at Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad have now become such a key part of the global aviation landscape that they are major gateways,” he said.
“They account for about half a million passengers in and out of those three airports every day or last year, 180 million people in a year.
“A large number of those are people transiting … there are people going to and from those airports, but a large number of people, not least to and from New Zealand, transiting in those airports.
“When this happened and flying ceased, there’ll be probably a couple of hundred thousand people may be stuck in Dubai airport, Abu Dhabi, Doha Airport, who were not even due to be there for more than a few hours and suddenly found themselves in this limbo.”
That’s the headache that airlines have got to slowly extricate themselves from as they can do so safely, he said.
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
