Pellegrine wrote:

Yemen has cut ties as well.

FlyDubai is suspending flights to Qatar.

Yemen was pretty much a given, it's pretty much an occupied country by KSA, and UAE ... It's airspace was restricted to all civil traffic anyway

MaverickM11 wrote:

How can the country support both ISIS and Iran?

Facts no longer present an obstacle.
( SA under the auspices of Wahabism is a much more influential promoter of terrorism in the region.
maybe Qatar and SA had a clash on terrorism objectives? )

sadiqutp wrote:

Pellegrine wrote:

Yemen has cut ties as well.

FlyDubai is suspending flights to Qatar.

Yemen was pretty much a given, it's pretty much an occupied country by KSA, and UAE ... It's airspace was restricted to all civil traffic anyway

Correct. No airline should fly over Yemen or southern KSA for that matter because of military operations.

SCQ83 wrote:

In any case, it is proven that the State of Qatar subsidises ISIS, which will be the impact in Qatar Airways from the EU or the US?

Wouldn't some kind of sanctions be applied to Qatari-controlled companies? Interestingly they have an stake in IAG.

Where is the proof that the State of Qatar subsidises ISIS? And if they did why would they be getting friendlier with Iran? Hopefully the diplomats will sort it all out as the last thing the Middle East needs is more instability.

Following a directive from the UAE government, Emirates has announced that it will suspend its flights to and from Doha until further notice, starting from the morning of 6 June 2017. The last DXB-DOH flight EK847 will depart at 02:30am on 6 June. The last flight from DOH-DXB will depart as EK848 at 03:50am the same morning.

Today's flights are operating normally but passengers who are starting out from another station and connecting in DXB to DOH are being advised to revise their travel plans. Emirates is offering alternative options, including full refunds on unused tickets and free re-booking to the nearest alternate Emirates destinations.

(Edited to correct spelling)

There are approx. 180K Egyptians in Qatar....mostly in construction.....nightmare if they were made to leave!

- Red: The new restricted airspace to Qatar
- Yellow: Previously restricted airspace for war/politics .
what would happen to "Bahrain FIR" since it's common for both Qatar and Bahrain? What would be the effect to EK, EY?

Noteworthy: Jordan will be totally locked to QR!

So with all the news having about the severance of diplomatic ties between Qatar and UAE, Egypt, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, I am now wondering:
1. Even though residents from Qatar are barred from entering and are asked to leave UAE, for instance, will residents from UAE be barred from Qatar?
2. What will the penalties be if these request is not adhered to?
3. Will financial transactions or interests be at risk if such counties have funds or bonds or investments with each other?

then of course, the travel aspect of things:
4. During flight, will QR have to bypass the UAE, Bahrain or KSA skies in order to reach other destinations?
5. Can airlines originating from UAE, Bahrain or KSA be allowed to fly over Qatar?
6. With QR in a tight bind, can they be able to codeshare with neighbouring airlines to ensure that traffic is maintained?
7. Will this ban have some negative impact on Airbus and Boeing aircraft orders?
8. How much impact ill this severance have on the OneWorld alliance?

and finally:
9: Do you think that airlines like AA and BA may now be chastised for retain cozy relationships with QR, with the negative view (not fact) that QR could be a small injection to the overall alleged support of terrorism?
10. Do you think at this time OneWorld could NOW benefit from having EY, probably prying out QR, in order to retain traffic from Dubai and Abu Dhabi?

I know, random thoughts, and your insights would be appreciated.

I do feel for the tens of thousands of Qataris living in these 5 countries that have 14 days to get out. The logical flights are through Iran, Iraq, Jordan, and Oman. Man those are going to be some expensive tix.

Emirates and Etihad announced suspension of service to and from Doha:

"From the morning of 6 June 2017, we will suspend all flights to and from Doha until further notice.
All guests who are booked on Etihad flights to and from Doha are being provided with alternative options.

For more information visit:‎ http://www.etihad.com/en/announcements/ ... LINK:Jun-5

Etihad Airways regrets any inconvenience caused."

Both FB walls are now in flame........

Qatar owns 25% share in IAG and investments in LATAM...giving the recent attacks in Manchester and London, not a good situation.

So what are they gonna do if Qatar Airways aircraft came into their airspace? Shoot them down?

AirIndia wrote:

Well, if anyone has noticed the FIR maps, Qatar really doesnt have an airspace. Its all under Bahrain airspace. So not sure what the specifics will be, but total closure of Bahrain OBBB airspace means no flying in or out of Qatar. So perhaps overflying and airspace restrictions may be limited....

https://www.icao.int/safety/FITS/Lists/ ... A2B443E7C2

Yes this is true.. awkward..

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flig ... 99#da04393 QR 1399 to Tunis is still flying over saudi as well as Egypt

24-48 hrs is timeframe

callmedrewy wrote:

will residents from UAE be barred from Qatar?

The statement issued by the UAE prohibits UAE nationals from traveling to or through Qatar. Failure to comply can result in imprisonment.

callmedrewy wrote:

During flight, will QR have to bypass the UAE, Bahrain or KSA skies in order to reach other destinations?

From the coming into force of air space closure to Qatar, yes as they will not be able to fly through that airspace.

callmedrewy wrote:

. Can airlines originating from UAE, Bahrain or KSA be allowed to fly over Qatar?

At the time of writing, the general position being adopted by media is "Qatari officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment." Until Qatar issues a statement, we don't know but if not, it won't be a major imposition to the airlines from those countries compared to the affect on QR.

c933103 wrote:

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/qr1399#da04393 QR 1399 to Tunis is still flying over saudi as well as Egypt

Because the airspace restrictions are not in effect yet. 24-48 hours depending on country.

juliuswong wrote:

So what are they gonna do if Qatar Airways aircraft came into their airspace? Shoot them down?

Their aircraft cannot enter airspace they are not permitted to. Aircraft cannot just fly wherever they wanted. Instead, they need permission to use the flight path at the approved altitude. Failure to do so may result in mid air collision (although very slim chance) and I am certain that no civilian pilot will ever enter the space that they do not obtain "right of way" .

Iran could take advantage of this and make its alliance with Qatar stronger! I'd love to see the faces of those GCC hypocrites when that happens...

Egyptair and FlyDubai discontinue Doha

Vladex wrote:

c933103 wrote:

NearMiss wrote:

Now, if QR ends up having problems, LATAM has problems.

One problem after another for the Chilean/Brazilian joint venture.

Why? I thought QR doesn't have much presence in Latin America?

I think he is alluding that QR is leasing several A350's from LATAM.

That, and the fact that they own 10% of the LATAM Group

Update on this: Lybia is also cutting relations with Qatar. Not looking good at all.

So Doha welcome to the club of countries where half of geography closed for air connection-Ukraine and Israel are already there, and UIA (PS) and El al (LY) show positive financial results, so for QR it will be painfully but hope everything will be fine

NearMiss wrote:

Vladex wrote:

c933103 wrote:

Why? I thought QR doesn't have much presence in Latin America?

I think he is alluding that QR is leasing several A350's from LATAM.

That, and the fact that they own 10% of the LATAM Group

just out of curiosity, how does this affect LATAM? Is QR pumping money into LATAM?

Another question, how is the international traffic affected in case of serving Doha?? Airlines that are not from that countries, I guess they will have the same type of ban if the origin or destination is DOH.

sadiqutp wrote:

- Red: The new restricted airspace to Qatar
- Yellow: Previously restricted airspace for war/politics .
what would happen to "Bahrain FIR" since it's common for both Qatar and Bahrain? What would be the effect to EK, EY?

Noteworthy: Jordan will be totally locked to QR!

I don't think EK and EY will have too many issues since they can always re-route around the Qatari airspace that is not very big. Tripolia and Ukraine FIR are also closed for QR and many more airlines. It surprise me that Kuwait and Oman are not in the picture yet.

luckily for Qatar they can still use Iran airspace, obviously QR flights will have some extra detour but they will manage for most of the routes out of Middle East,

persiangulf93 wrote:

Iran could take advantage of this and make its alliance with Qatar stronger! I'd love to see the faces of those GCC hypocrites when that happens...

I am not sure if that's a good idea, what they need now is to relax the situation and start negotiations to solve the problem and not make things worse, UAE, KSA and Bahrein are very powerful and have a lot of influence in the international institutions.

juliuswong wrote:

So what are they gonna do if Qatar Airways aircraft came into their airspace? Shoot them down?

I hope we don't reach that point, that's the last option always.

sadiqutp wrote:

Yemen was pretty much a given, it's pretty much an occupied country by KSA, and UAE ... It's airspace was restricted to all civil traffic anyway

Yemen airspace is not completely closed for civil operation, some airways over the sea are used daily but of course as you said KSA and UAE are the ones handling the situation there, so it's normal now that even that will be closed for QR.

Well crap. Any particular reason?

nutsaboutplanes wrote:

ThePointblank wrote:

airtrantpa wrote:

USCENTCOM is based at MacDill AFBin Tampa, FL

Probably meant COMUSNAVCENT.

USCENTCOM for the forward operation in the mid-east is based out of AUAB in Qatar. The US ran Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom from this location.

Yes they did, but centcom is HQ at MacDill, I should know since my navy reserve unit has me at CENTCOM every drill weekend

Floridaguy74656 wrote:

The Al Udeid Air Base southwest of Doha,Qatar has according to latest media reports roughly 10k US troops there. Gotta wonder whats going to happen with that.

From my vantage point out here...absolutely nothing.

Pellegrine wrote:

I do feel for the tens of thousands of Qataris living in these 5 countries that have 14 days to get out. The logical flights are through Iran, Iraq, Jordan, and Oman. Man those are going to be some expensive tix.

Well yeah from the a.net point of view you could say that. The people involved are probably more worried about their friends and family. To say nothing of their real estate and other possessions, maybe even bank accounts, which will be de facto forfeit.

For once the pilots who fly to the regions opinion is of interest to me. How do Bahrain and Qatar handle the airspace. I struggle to see the Qataris leaving all to the Bahrainis? Qatar is not exactly known to be smooth to deal with. In any industry so them allowing their airspace to be handled from Bahrain seems unlikely to me. Any redundancies?

I assume Qatar can fly straight out and over to Iranian airspace. Qatar closing its airspace makes very little difference to anyone, I doubt they will do so.

Not far away from Qatar are the main export terminals for the KSA crude.
I wonder if KSA and Bahrain plan to close the waters too(or is it to big risk to do that) and how Qatar will react. Qatar can cause a major headache and or that sake rise in crude prices should they be aggressive in its waters. After all, Qatar-Iran creates a virtual lock in the Persian gulf. Would be interesting to see KSA and Bahrain ask ships to use Iranian waters, not that it would ever come to that but non the less...

While this is politics and not aviation bu it does discuss topics mentioned by many posters above. My take on it is that its the UAE and Egypt, who are much closer to each other than most here seem to understand, that are the primary drivers for this ban.
UAE (Abu Dhabi in particular) has long been unhappy about Qatar. While its Al Jazeera Arabic is a polarising and very different from the English version (the English version is high quality and as impartial as TV channels get - minus explicit bias in Israeli news) I believe that Qatars constant support and harbouring of the muslim brotherhood (its Egyptian "head preacher or whatever he is called" has his show on Al Jazeera Arabic where the sniping towards Egypt and UAE is constant) is the driver for this. Qatar has been under pressure and did expel a handful of Hamas (MB mates) persons the other day.
UAE banned their version of the muslim brotherhood and disallowed its members to hold any official positions in the emirates about a decade ago. The MB had then gotten a reasonably strong position among the population in the poorer emirates, RAK, Sharjah etc and also had support among the second and third generation arabs esp. the Egyptians, Palestinians that lived in UAE. After the ban many known Muslim brotherhood members relocated to Qatar (almost all of them work in the Qatari governments companies - Al Jazerra especially) and gained meaningful employment and power there. Their power has increased substantially after the new emir took over. Egypt is also fighting the MB in its own country and fighting against a regime in Tripoli, Libya that is supported by Qatar. In short Egypt has every reason to be mad at Qatar.

KSA, I believe they are doing this for other reasons, mainly to reaffirm their link to Egypt and keep the leadership in the GCC intact. Some opportunism doesn't hurt either, Qatar has started to challenge present GCC balance, presenting differing viewpoints and following its own lead. They have also thrown its cash around something that Kuwait in particular has listened too.
Kuwait and Turkey (Turkeys AKP being close to the MB) is thus very interesting to watch here. Will they sit this one out, if not and they join the rest the its really game over for the young inexperienced emir of Qatar (or possibly his mother, depending on whose version of events you listen too).

Iran is best served by being stable and assisting both parties.

I have been calling for that for years now, finally some countries have the balls to show them what's right. Granted, those countries are no saints either, but Qatar is by far the worst. Shame that it wasn't exactly the west doing this....

Maldives has also broken relations with Qatar. QR flies to MLE. I wonder how big the Maldivian space is?

It looks like most Muslim countries will "need" to be aligned with KSA and the UAE.

SCQ83 wrote:

Maldives has also broken relations with Qatar. QR flies to MLE. I wonder how big the Maldivian space is?

It looks like most Muslim countries will "need" to be aligned with KSA and the UAE.

Will that include Malaysia and Indonesia? Qatar just announced big increase in flights to Bali

sadiqutp wrote:

Thinking out loud, If the airspace blockade takes place. What would be affected?
1- All traffic to North/east/center of Europe & North Africa wouldn't be affected as the routes usually uses Iranian-Turkish airspace
2- All traffic to Asia and Australia would have a slight detour through Iranian/Pakistani airspace
3- All traffic to South America and south/southeast African would have a detour through Iranian/Pakistani and back to Oman ( which is a neutral country in this whole mess)
4- The biggest affect by far would be to North & center Africa, Jordan, Lebanese, South west Europe, Sudan as the detour would be massive.
5- Not to mentioned the cancelled destinations themselves which account for a massive feed and revenue to their network ...

What a mess, but I am enjoying my popcorn

cdenter africa i think they only fly to LOS which is pretty far away and thus time difference of changing the route to Oman should be insignificant. Rest of their African detination are North/Eastern/South Africa, with only KRT/JIB/ADD/TUN/ALG/CMN flights fly through Saudi. TUN/ALG/CMN flights would probably fly over Iran instead which is some detour but probably not that large. JIB/ADD can be reached via Oman with a route that is only slightly longer, probably KRT is the only African destination that would take significant longer time to reach.
On the Europe side, while their flights to Southern Europe are currently via Egypt, the distance difference if rerouted via Turkey to Italy/Spain doesn't seems to be that great so probably managable. Same for LCA/BEY. Although the great circle distance to LCA/BEY via Saudi arabia is much shorter than via Turkey, but those flight currently have to fly south of Israel/Jordan anyway, so a change in path to Turkey shouldn't cost much more time.
The remaining destination is AMM... Serve via Iraq? They are currently flying into Iraq airspace anyway with their flights to Baghdad. Alternatively stop flying to it or talk to Israel.. but talk to Israel would only further anger Gulf States...Syria is also an option but the route over Syria seems to be more dangerous than Southern Iraq...
Will flight on other carriers to Doha, for example RB521, from Syria to Qatar, also blocked off from Saudi airspace?

SCQ83 wrote:

Maldives has also broken relations with Qatar. QR flies to MLE. I wonder how big the Maldivian space is?

It looks like most Muslim countries will "need" to be aligned with KSA and the UAE.

http://caa.gov.mv/beta003/operations/ae ... /airspace/
Mainly affect flight to PER/MEL/ADL

SCQ83 wrote:

Maldives has also broken relations with Qatar. QR flies to MLE. I wonder how big the Maldivian space is?

It looks like most Muslim countries will "need" to be aligned with KSA and the UAE.

Source???

ahj2000 wrote:

Nothing on QRs site abiut this...
I wonder what they are going to do. thats a LOT of their passenger base.

On the other hand, Hamas does need to go. No excuses.

What does Hamas have to do with this?!?

c933103 wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

Maldives has also broken relations with Qatar. QR flies to MLE. I wonder how big the Maldivian space is?

It looks like most Muslim countries will "need" to be aligned with KSA and the UAE.

http://caa.gov.mv/beta003/operations/ae ... /airspace/
Mainly affect flight to PER/MEL/ADL

QR flights to Australia don't always go over The Maldives, sometimes they go over southern India and over Srilanka

QF29 wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

Maldives has also broken relations with Qatar. QR flies to MLE. I wonder how big the Maldivian space is?

It looks like most Muslim countries will "need" to be aligned with KSA and the UAE.

Source???

Google News is your friend

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gu ... Qatar.html

qf789 wrote:

c933103 wrote:

SCQ83 wrote:

Maldives has also broken relations with Qatar. QR flies to MLE. I wonder how big the Maldivian space is?

It looks like most Muslim countries will "need" to be aligned with KSA and the UAE.

http://caa.gov.mv/beta003/operations/ae ... /airspace/
Mainly affect flight to PER/MEL/ADL

QR flights to Australia don't always go over The Maldives, sometimes they go over southern India and over Srilanka

Their flight to SYD yesterday did not go through Maldive, not sure above ADL/MEL which given their location probably depend on situation, but how about their PER flights?

c933103 wrote:

qf789 wrote:

c933103 wrote:

http://caa.gov.mv/beta003/operations/ae ... /airspace/
Mainly affect flight to PER/MEL/ADL

QR flights to Australia don't always go over The Maldives, sometimes they go over southern India and over Srilanka

Their flight to SYD yesterday did not go through Maldive, not sure above ADL/MEL which given their location probably depend on situation, but how about their PER flights?

While QR has gone over the Maldives to PER over the past week, the flights from PER have tracked over Srilanka and Southern India

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flig ... 0/#d8eaa1f

https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flig ... 1/#d8d8dc3

We go on our honeymoon to the Maldives in the middle of July, on QR ... from Europe. Jesus this is what I needed now!

scotron11 wrote:

Qatar owns 25% share in IAG and investments in LATAM...giving the recent attacks in Manchester and London, not a good situation.

A financial investment, which will probably have been affected more by the BA IT fiasco...

Catering for the airline is about to become more expensive, Qatar imports 40% of its food by land across the KSA boarder, 100's of trucks a day, when closed they will have to fly it in or ship it.

While only Qatar Airways will be directly affected by this (and seriously), surely this will also have a knock on effect on the other carriers in the region?

The fact that we refer to the ME3 reflects the fact the world (to generalise) lumps the 3 carriers and indeed the oil rich Gulf States together. If one suddenly becomes a "pariah state", will this reputational blow affect the UAE carriers as well, even though they have nothing to do with this? I'm not sure how many people around the world are that expert on the complicated politics in the region...

readytotaxi wrote:

Catering for the airline is about to become more expensive, Qatar imports 40% of its food by land across the KSA boarder, 100's of trucks a day, when closed they will have to fly it in or ship it.

There are reports that trucks carrying food are already lining up in Saudi Arabia and are unable to enter Qatar

Al-Jazeera is reporting that trucks carrying food for Qatar are now lining up across the border in Saudi Arabia, unable to enter the country amid the diplomatic row.

http://www.news.com.au/world/middle-eas ... b2505fe80a

This could also create a huge problem, unless exemptions are given, for the Hajj and other religious pilgrimage flights to Saudi Arabia.

persiangulf93 wrote:

Iran could take advantage of this and make its alliance with Qatar stronger! I'd love to see the faces of those GCC hypocrites when that happens...

Me too

"Saudia tentatively to resume Doha service by 20JUN17, however reservation temporary closed until mid-August 2017"

https://twitter.com/Airlineroute/status/871670161073332226

And:

"Gulf Air closed bookings for Doha flights from 06JUN17 to 28OCT17"

https://twitter.com/Airlineroute/status/871670430087618560