The proliferation of competing zones is an increasing burden of airline operations and profitability, executives say, as executives are working to film missiles and drones, airspace closures, location spoofing and other passenger flights.
Airlines often acquire costs from cancelled flights and expensive rerouting and lose market share. The aviation industry, which prides itself on its safety performance, is investing more in its data and security plans.
“Flight planning in this type of environment is extremely difficult. The airline industry has been successful in predictability, and the lack of this always drives greater costs,” said Guy Murray, head of aviation security at a carrier TUI airline in Europe.
Airlines remain less route choices as airspace closures around Russia and Ukraine are increasing, and as they are across the Middle East, between India and Pakistan and part of Africa.
“As compared to five years ago, over half of countries filled with typical European and Asian flights, they need to be carefully reviewed before each flight,” said Mark Zee, founder of OpsGroup, a membership-based organization that shares flight risk information.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the Middle East since October 2023 has led to commercial aviation sharing short-term barrages of drones and missiles and air across major flight routes.
While Russian airports, including Moscow, are regularly closed for short periods of time due to drone activities, interference with navigation systems known as GPS spoofing or jamming has skyrocketed around political fault lines around the world.
Last month, when hostilities broke out between India and Pakistan, neighbors blocked each other's aircraft from their respective airspace.
“Airspace should not be used as a retaliation tool, but that's true,” Nick Karien, vice president of operations at the International Air Transport Association (IATA), told reporters at the airline's annual meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Isidre Porqueras, chief operating officer of Indian Career Indigo, said the recent shift has rescinded efforts to reduce emissions and increase the efficiency of the airline.
The worst case scenario
Finance aside, the worst case scenario for civil aviation is an airplane that is accidentally or intentionally attacked by weapons.
In December, an Azerbaijan Airlines flight crashed in Kazakhstan, killing 38 people. According to Azerbaijan's president and Reuters sources, the plane was accidentally shot down by Russian air defense.
In October, five people were killed when a cargo plane was shot down in Sudan.
According to Aviation Risk Consultancy Osprey Flight Solutions, six commercial aircraft have been unintentionally shot down since 2001, and three near misses have been shot down since 2001.
The government needs to share information more effectively to keep civil aviation safe as conflict zones grow, IATA Director Willie Walsh said this week.
Safety statistics used in the commercial aviation industry show that accidents have been steadily declining over the past 20 years, but these do not include security-related incidents such as being attacked by weapons.
The IATA said in February that accidents and incidents related to the conflict zone are the biggest concerns of aviation safety, requiring urgent global coordination.
A tough choice
Each airline decides where to travel based on a patchwork of government notifications, security advisors and information sharing between the airline and the state, leading to diverse policies.
Since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine in 2022, Russian airspace closures for most western airlines have kept airlines from locations such as China, India and the Middle East taking short north routes with fewer fuel and fewer crew members.
Changing the risk calculation means that the SQ326 flight from Singapore to Amsterdam used three different routes to Europe in just one year.
When mutual missile and drone attacks occurred between Iran and Israel in April 2024, it began crossing Afghanistan, which was previously avoided in place of Iran.
The route moved again to avoid Pakistan's airspace as the conflict escalated between India and Pakistan last month. Flight SQ326 arrived in Europe via the Persian Gulf and Iraq. Singapore Airlines did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Pilots and flight attendants are also concerned about how risk-changing patchwork will affect safety.
“Airlines say they need to determine whether it's safe to fly safely through conflict zones rather than regulators. But history shows that commercial pressures cloud those decisions.”
Squadrons are usually entitled to refuse to travel due to concerns about airspace and concerns about airspace, according to IATA Security Head Careen.
“In fact, most airlines say that most of them don't want a crew on the plane if they don't feel comfortable flying,” he said.
