A slew of top international carriers, including Lufthansa, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and Air France, made sudden announcements regarding cancellation of flights destined to countries in the Middle East, as per multiple international reports.
Multiple airport websites updated flight information online as US President Donald Trump said an American “armada” was heading to the Middle East amid rising death toll connected to Tehran’s crackdown on protesters in Iran. The MAGA leader’s claims amid a continued back-and-forth between the USA and Iran over a potential military action.
As a result, flights to countries like Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia will be impacted.
Major airlines cancel flights to Middle East
Air France announced that it had cancelled flights between Paris and Dubai on January 23 and January 24. It cited the “current situation in the Middle East” as the driving force behind its decision to temporarily suspend service to the emirate.
Similarly, Dutch carrier KLM stopped flights headed to Dubai, Riyadh and Dammam in Saudi Arabia and Tel Aviv until further notice, as per Bloomberg. In a separate statement, the airline pressed that it was currently avoiding the airspace over several countries in the Gulf alongside Iran, Iraq and Israel.
Additionally, United Airways and Air Canada cancelled their flights to Israel in light of heightened speculation that the US may strike Iran.
Is a US strike on Iran imminent?
US President Donald Trump has repeatedly reiterated “help is on its way,” addressing the ongoing situation in Iran. However, he ultimately pulled back from launching any such attack on Iran weeks ago.
Activists indicated the death toll related to the crackdown on nationwide anti-government protests has hit at least 5,032. The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has even warned that the true numbers may be much higher amid the continuing weeks-long near-total internet blackout.
On the contrary, the official Iranian death toll stands at a far lower level – just a little over 3,000, as per the AP.
Despite the previous reversal, Trump has since warned “a lot of ships” are “going that direction, just in case.” Speaking on Air Force One while returning from the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, he said, ” I’d rather not see anything happen, but we’re watching them very closely … we have an armada … heading in that direction, and maybe we won’t have to use it.”
According to the Associated Press, a Navy official said that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and three other destroyers departed from the South China Sea and started heading west earlier this week.
Moreover, the Central Command said on social media that the Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle was now in the Mideast, adding the jet “enhances combat readiness and promotes regional security and stability.”
Flight-tracking data analysts also observed dozens of US military cargo planes were headed to the region, as per the AP.
Following Trump’s “armada” statement, a senior Iranian official sounded off the alarm that it will view an attack “as an all-out war against us,” according to Reuters. Ahead of the arrival of several US assets, including a military aircraft carrier strike group, in the Middle East in the coming days, the official maintained, “This military buildup – we hope it is not intended for real confrontation – but our military is ready for the worst-case scenario. This is why everything is on high alert in Iran.”
“This time we will treat any attack – limited, unlimited, surgical, kinetic, whatever they call it – as an all-out war against us, and we will respond in the hardest way possible to settle this.”