Airlines avoid Pakistan's airspace as tensions rise after India's strike

By Mihir Mishra and Danny Lee

 

Commercial jets have streamed out of Pakistani airspace, leaving the skies effectively empty, after targeted military strikes by India sparked a dramatic escalation in tensions between the countries. 

More than a dozen Indian airports near the border with Pakistan will be closed until at least 12 p.m. local time, according to social media posts by domestic carriers including Air India Ltd. and IndiGo. Qatar Airways has temporarily halted flights into Pakistan, it said in a post on X.

 

An Ethiopian Airlines plane on its way to Seoul and a Turkish Airlines jet heading to Istanbul from Karachi were the last flights to leave Pakistani airspace, according to flight-tracking website Flightradar24. 

 

 

While it’s unclear whether Pakistani airspace has officially closed, the redirection of air traffic signals carriers’ concerns about a further escalation of the conflict. Pakistan said it shot down five Indian jets in retaliation for the strikes, with the tit-for-tat blows coming after a militant attack last month in Kashmir that killed 26 people.

Our most tracked flight right now: the lone flight traversing Pakistan. Based on NOTAMs, Pakistan has not closed its airspace, but there continue to be multiple airways unavailable to traffic. https://t.co/mQoh5wnOer pic.twitter.com/BJxwQkQl5B

— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) May 7, 2025

Among the string of Indian airports closed until further notice included Dharamshala, Srinagar, Amritsar, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Hindon near New Delhi and airports in the west of India include Jamnagar, Rajkot and Bhuj, airlines have announced in posts on X.

Airline Detours

Pakistan’s airspace is already closed to Indian carriers. But a complete shutdown would be a blow for carriers flying between Europe and the Middle East to Southeast Asia, as well as for jets traveling between Africa and North Asia.

 

Europe’s largest airlines were already avoiding Pakistani airspace amid simmering tensions with India, adding another detour to global flight paths that have become increasingly caught up in military standoffs around the world. 

 

Deutsche Lufthansa AG, Air France-KLM and British Airways have all stopped using the airspace and have instead reverted to flying over the Arabian sea since the end of April to enter India, data by Flightradar24 show prior to the latest military action. Emirates, the world’s largest international airline, is also circumnavigating the area, the data show.

 

The detours means that flying hours between Europe, the Middle East and Asia have become longer, in some cases by as much as 100 minutes, resulting in higher costs from extra fuel burn. Many airlines have already avoided Russian airspace since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, forcing them to take long detours between Europe and Asia. 

 

Relations between India and Pakistan — two nuclear-armed nations and longtime adversaries - have rapidly deteriorated in the wake of devastating attack on April 22 that left 26 civilians, including tourists, dead in India-administered Kashmir. India and the US have called it an act of terrorism.

 

Since then, Pakistan has barred Indian airlines from using Pakistan’s airspace. India has also closed its airspace for Pakistani airlines and Pakistan-registered aircraft until May 23. While Air India continues to operate all its flights to Europe and the US with stopovers in Europe, IndiGo has announced it will cancel flights to Almaty and Tashkent till May 7.

 

While IndiGo hasn’t shared any estimates on the losses it will incur from the airspace closure, Air India estimates losses of $600 million if the ban continues for a year.    

 

Some airlines like LOT Polish and Etihad Airways avoided Pakistan’s airspace in the few days following the Kashmir attack, before returning to their original routes flying over the country. 

 

Lufthansa said that it continues to monitor the current developments closely. British Airways, Air France-KLM, Emirates and Etihad didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.