TRAPPED In A Warzone With No FUEL?!

0:00 [Reporter] Chaos at Dubai's international airport.

0:08 Has the world of aviation just changed forever?

0:11 That's the question that's on everybody's mind right now,

0:14 because in the space of just a few hours,

0:16 a part of the world that was once our most

0:19 vital aerial crossroads effectively turned into a giant void.

0:24 Pilots flying jets with hundreds of people on board between Europe

0:27 and Asia suddenly saw their planned routes over the Gulf simply disappear.

0:33 Now, many of these flights had the good fortune of still being far

0:36 enough away from the action that they could simply turn around or divert,

0:40 which they obviously did.

0:42 And many of these jets also carried plenty of extra fuel,

0:46 which wasn't a coincidence, because in reality,

0:49 the military buildup was obvious for days or even

0:52 weeks before the war in Iran broke out.

0:55 And with that as a prospect, many airlines and crews had already been

0:59 making some seriously conservative flight planning decisions.

1:03 Hence all of that extra fuel for flights going into or over the Gulf.

1:07 And many of them had also filed flight plans

1:09 with diversion airports as far away as Athens in Greece,

1:13 very distant airports that were safe diversion options,

1:16 basically somewhere to hang the hat should things kick off.

1:20 But in hindsight, were these diversion airports as safe as first thought?

1:25 Well, when the war first broke out on the 28th of February,

1:28 even those supposedly distant airports quickly began to feel the strain.

1:33 With many aircraft suddenly looking to divert all at once,

1:36 airspace a long way from the firefight filled up really quickly.

1:41 Issues such as stand availability for the diverting

1:44 aircraft suddenly became a really big problem.

1:47 Airport managers had to get on the phone to their colleagues in other airports

1:51 to see if they had any spare

1:53 capacity to accommodate airliners packed full of people.

1:57 Now, all of this applied to flights that were far

1:59 enough away that they could fly off to safe alternates.

2:02 And those with even more fuel in the tanks

2:05 often flew all the way back to their departure airport.

2:08 But for some pilots and their passengers, things became much more serious.

2:14 These were the flights that were already inside the conflict

2:17 airspace over the Gulf when the war broke out.

2:20 And for many of them, their options of where to go were disappearing

2:23 faster than the time they had to react.

2:26 Now, some of the personal stories that I heard

2:28 from colleagues from that morning of the 28th of February,

2:31 when the fighting broke out,

2:33 would seem pretty much unthinkable in any other scenario.

2:37 Initially, aircraft that had just departed from Doha in Qatar

2:40 or Dubai in the UAE were entering holding patterns right after departure.

2:45 And that's because they'd planned to head north

2:48 into Kuwait and Iraqi airspace close to Iran,

2:52 which obviously now wasn't an option.

2:55 Gradually, more and more aircraft in the region were put into the hold

2:58 while controllers tried to figure out what

3:01 to do as the military situation escalated.

3:03 And this meant that after entering a hold,

3:06 many pilots flying over Qatar or the UAE

3:09 were then suddenly told that they should land immediately.

3:12 Now, they literally had 10 minutes to either

3:15 get on the ground or leave the airspace.

3:17 And unless you're in a position to start an approach immediately,

3:21 well, landing within the next 10 minutes just wasn't an option.

3:25 As a result, the majority of aircraft

3:27 in that airspace were now effectively in no man's land.

3:31 For example, if an aircraft was flying locally from, say,

3:34 Doha to Dubai and decided to divert to Muscat in Oman,

3:39 they would now need to do so without transiting through the closed UAE airspace,

3:44 therefore heading south initially through Saudi Arabia,

3:48 which would inevitably consume a lot

3:49 of the extra fuel that was loaded before departure.

3:53 And because this seemed like a sensible option under the circumstances,

3:56 a large number of crew elected to initiate that diversion to Muscat.

4:01 However, as they approached Muscat over an hour later,

4:05 the crews were informed this airport was also

4:08 closing as they couldn't take any more diversions

4:11 for the simple reason that they no longer

4:13 had any space for aircraft on the ground.

4:16 So the aircraft who had flown an hour's

4:18 worth of diversion and were most of the way

4:21 there now had to turn around a second time

4:24 to divert to places like Riyadh in Saudi Arabia,

4:27 but again, without using UAE airspace.

4:30 And even with the most conservative fuel planning in the world,

4:34 many aircraft simply couldn't make

4:36 that work and started declaring fuel emergencies.

4:39 Now, normally calling a "Mayday fuel" on frequency would

4:43 open up all airspace and all runways for that aircraft, but not on that day.

4:48 Incredibly, at least some air traffic

4:51 controllers initially refused to allow emergency

4:53 aircraft to land because they had

4:55 instructions from military supervisors to accept nobody.

4:59 And that's because missiles,

5:01 drones and fighter jets were now operating over the entire region.

5:06 Eventually pilots with literally no fuel to go

5:09 anywhere else were essentially told that they could land,

5:12 but at their own risk, something incredibly rare to hear.

5:16 And then in the case of aircraft that did manage to land safely in Dubai,

5:20 their passengers and crew were rewarded by having to deal with rockets,

5:24 missiles and drones landing around the airport and the rest of the city.

5:28 All in all, it was a very surreal few

5:31 hours for our colleagues and the people in their care.

5:34 But that begs the question that I'm sure many of you are thinking,

5:38 why were so many aircraft using that airspace to begin with?

5:42 For one thing, why were all those aircraft departing

5:44 from Doha or Dubai heading north so close to Iran?

5:48 Well, to understand that, we need to look at this region in a bit more detail,

5:53 to see how commercial aircraft flew near it before

5:55 the war broke out and how that's now changed.

5:59 Firstly, this war is obviously just the latest

6:01 in a really long line of conflicts.

6:04 In the past decade and beyond, we've had wars all over from Afghanistan, Syria,

6:10 Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Ukraine,

6:13 all of which have brought airspace closures or restrictions.

6:17 Plus, the Ukraine war brought sanctions that closed

6:20 Russian airspace to a large number of airlines.

6:23 All of this meant that especially in an area like the Middle East,

6:27 airspace has progressively been getting squeezed tighter and tighter.

6:31 So, before the end of February 2026, most aircraft flying over the Middle

6:35 East whilst operating services between Europe

6:38 and Asia or the South Pacific had three routes to choose from.

6:42 Firstly, the southern route, which takes flights through Greece,

6:45 then Egypt, Saudi Arabia and onto Qatar or the UAE.

6:50 Then we had the central route, which took aircraft through Turkey,

6:53 then Iraq, the Persian Gulf and then again onto Qatar or the UAE.

6:57 And finally, the northern route,

6:59 which takes flights through the northern coast of Turkey,

7:02 then Armenia and Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan,

7:05 Afghanistan, Pakistan and on further east.

7:09 A note here that even before the latest hostilities,

7:12 the northern route took aircraft over Afghanistan, which it still does today.

7:17 And that adds its own set of unique threats,

7:20 because Afghanistan's airspace has been entirely uncontrolled,

7:23 classified as Class G airspace since August 2021.

7:28 Now, there are specific routes for aircraft to follow with air traffic

7:32 controllers in adjacent sectors sequencing traffic in and out of these routes.

7:36 But once inside Afghan airspace,

7:38 there are no controllers controlling any of the flights.

7:42 And that adds extra complexity for the crews, which, amongst other things,

7:46 involves the requirement to make position

7:48 reports every 10 minutes and proactive listening

7:50 out on the designated frequency for all

7:53 involved to ensure situation awareness is maintained.

7:56 But that's not the only problem with flying in Afghan airspace.

8:00 For example, aircraft are advised to stay above flight level 320

8:04 or 32,000 feet to avoid small surface to air missile attacks.

8:08 And in the case of an engine or other technical issue,

8:12 crew needs to avoid diverting to any Afghan

8:15 airport because of the associated threats to aircraft,

8:18 crew safety and the security there.

8:21 But despite these threats, this airspace was considered a better option than

8:25 Iran even before the 28th of February, 2026.

8:28 So how has the situation changed since then?

8:31 And how will all of this affect aviation

8:33 in the longer term globally beyond the Middle East?

8:36 Well, we'll explore that after this...

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10:11 Now let's get back to how aircraft are dodging the hostile airspace around Iran.

10:16 So with bombs and drones flying as the fighting started,

10:20 Iraqi airspace closed really quickly and that meant

10:23 that we lost the central route,

10:25 which put the aircraft over Iraq very close to Iran.

10:28 And as I mentioned earlier, on the morning of the 28th of February,

10:32 several aircraft departed Doha and Dubai and headed north towards

10:36 Iraq because they were planning to use that central route.

10:39 But that's not the only routing change in the region.

10:42 The southern route has been slightly modified now and defined more rigidly.

10:46 With aircraft recommended to fly south

10:48 of a line defined by a series of waypoints,

10:51 OBSOT, DANOM, KEDON, VELOD and remain above Flight Level 320.

10:57 This southern route depends on the use of Saudi airspace.

11:01 And Saudi authorities warn that military activity

11:03 can cause airspace closures at really short notice, which is worth remembering.

11:09 So what about Qatar and the UAE?

11:12 Well, they're important because the two largest airlines in the Middle East,

11:15 Qatar and Emirates operate from these countries.

11:19 And in terms of passenger capacity, these two airlines,

11:22 along with Etihad, which is also in the UAE,

11:25 are so large that the loss of their operations

11:28 alone would be an enormous disruption in itself.

11:31 As some of you know, Emirates and Qatar are hub and spoke airlines

11:35 that rely on the position of their hubs halfway between Europe and much of Asia

11:39 and Oceania to connect a lot of the world.

11:43 And there is some relatively good news in that regard,

11:46 but the longer term picture is still fairly unclear.

11:49 The CEO of Dubai Airport, the home of Emirates,

11:53 reported on the 17th of March that the airport was

11:55 back to around 40 to 45% of its normal capacity.

11:59 And that broadly aligns with its

12:01 aircraft data recorded by websites like FlightRadar24,

12:04 although this one shows a dip in traffic before the 17th

12:08 of March because of drone attacks to fuel installations near Dubai Airport.

12:13 The Dubai Airport CEO also says

12:15 that the airport isn't refusing access to any airlines

12:18 that wish to fly there because of suggestions

12:21 that they are favouring Emirates and other local airlines,

12:23 but I'll come back to that in a minute.

12:25 In any case, on the face of it, this slow recovery seems like good news,

12:30 considering that it happened just over two weeks ago when we're recording

12:33 this, and involves airlines and airports that are so close to the war zone.

12:37 On the other hand though,

12:38 there are definitely some indications that Emirates and Qatar

12:41 are expecting the conflict to last a good while longer.

12:45 Qatar in particular has been sending more

12:47 and more of its widebodies into storage,

12:50 although some of these airports like Teruel

12:52 in Spain are also used for their heavy maintenance.

12:55 So Qatar could be doing both by taking

12:58 advantage of this downtime to refresh its fleet.

13:01 But another interesting factor here is the availability of fuel.

13:05 There are some reports that after Iranian

13:07 drone attacks at fuel installations near Dubai Airport,

13:11 Emirates had to dispatch some outbound flights with limited fuel,

13:14 so not enough to fly to destination,

13:17 but enough to fly to airports in Saudi Arabia

13:20 in order to refuel before continuing on to its planned destination,

13:23 which is known as a tech stop.

13:26 Now, all of that sounds like a bit of a headache for the Gulf Airlines,

13:29 which I'm really sure it is,

13:31 but it's not just the Gulf Airlines that this crisis is affecting.

13:35 Let's look at airlines like Qantas in Australia.

13:38 For its flight from Perth to London in the UK,

13:40 it now has to add a refueling stop or tech stop in Singapore.

13:44 Other airlines are taking similar precautions,

13:47 and this is not just because many routes got longer.

13:50 Remember when I said earlier that Saudi Arabia warned

13:52 airlines about the possibility of last minute airway closures?

13:56 Well, that affects everyone flying in or close to that airspace,

14:00 not just the Gulf Airlines.

14:03 And that means that all airlines operating in that airspace,

14:06 wherever they fly from, would need to divert if that airspace suddenly closed,

14:11 and potentially to a lot of the same airports,

14:13 just like many airlines had to on the day the war broke out.

14:17 As a result, flights need to be planned very conservatively

14:20 and uplift a lot more fuel han they usually need.

14:23 But this also means that there's now serious limits to the flow

14:27 of traffic through both of the remaining corridors through the region,

14:30 to make sure that if one or both of them need to close, even temporarily,

14:34 all the aircraft in the air will be able

14:37 to find an alternate that has the capacity to accept them.

14:41 And these limitations are re-evaluated constantly,

14:44 not just because of things like drones hitting a target near the airport,

14:48 but also in case something completely unrelated happens to a diversion airport,

14:52 like a runway closure or a degradation

14:54 in fire and emergency cover that limits its capacity,

14:58 throwing just another joker into the flight planning pack of cards.

15:02 Now, at this point, you may be asking,

15:04 with all these changes hitting the region,

15:06 why are some airlines still flying through the Middle East and even

15:10 landing at airports near the conflict zone like Dubai and Doha,

15:14 while others are staying well away from the region?

15:16 Also, is there any favoritism in key airports?

15:20 Well, these are good questions and require us

15:22 to talk about something that's usually a bit boring,

15:26 but it's actually a big deal in this discussion, and that's insurance.

15:30 If an airline can't find an insurer who's willing

15:33 to cover a trip to a certain part of the world,

15:35 well, they simply can't fly there, even if operationally,

15:39 politically or otherwise, they'd be happy to.

15:42 However, there is an important caveat to that.

15:44 In some cases, an airline that's really keen to fly

15:48 somewhere can look for a bit of backing from elsewhere.

15:51 As Paul Griffiths, the Dubai airport CEO, points out,

15:55 some governments are willing to underwrite the insurance of their flag

15:58 carriers or other airlines to destinations in the Gulf,

16:01 while others are just not.

16:03 As a result, you can see that some airlines have pushed the return of flights

16:07 to the Middle East all of the way back to the autumn of 2026,

16:11 while most others are a bit more optimistic.

16:14 Now, to be clear, while insurance is definitely

16:16 a big factor in the differences between airlines, it's far from the only one.

16:21 Obviously, each airline values these and other destinations a bit differently,

16:25 and some airlines with relatively little to lose might choose to put some extra

16:30 aircraft through maintenance if they can find

16:32 the capacity for that at short notice.

16:35 Anyway, so far, we've covered airlines based

16:37 in the Gulf and airlines flying too,

16:39 or just over the region, but what about everybody else?

16:43 Well, here is where we get to the side

16:45 effect of this war that's affecting everyone.

16:48 Fuel prices.

16:49 As we've covered many times on the channel,

16:51 the price of fuel is one of the largest,

16:53 if not the largest single operating cost of an airline.

16:57 And as I'm sure you already know,

16:59 the Straits of Hormuz aren't just the pathway into the Persian Gulf.

17:03 They're also at the centre of one

17:05 of the most important logistical systems of our planet,

17:08 controlling roughly one-fifth of the world's traded oil supplies.

17:12 And that means that any disruption there, whether it's from actual conflict,

17:16 mining of shipping lanes by Iran, or missile and drone strikes,

17:19 can ripple across the entire global economy.

17:23 And even without a rapidly escalating global conflict hitting the region,

17:27 just the perception of danger is enough to induce uncertainty.

17:31 And energy prices react quickly to uncertainty,

17:33 and nowhere is that reaction felt more immediately than in industries

17:37 that depend on a huge and constantly available supply of fuel.

17:41 And few industries depend on fuel as much as aviation does.

17:45 Airline profitability is normally measured in low single digits,

17:49 so when oil prices surge sharply, the effect can be dramatic.

17:54 Airlines suddenly find themselves paying billions of dollars more to operate

17:57 the same flights they were operating just weeks or days earlier.

18:01 In the short term, fuel shortages can lead

18:03 to dramatic moves that are already hitting many airlines.

18:07 For example, countries such as China and Thailand

18:09 have announced bans on jet fuel exports, prompting Vietnam to cut flights.

18:14 And China's strategy can also affect Australia and other key markets.

18:18 Now, in the shorter term,

18:20 there are some moves that might mitigate these problems,

18:23 well, at least to some extent.

18:25 You've probably heard of one of these short term measures,

18:28 the release of strategic oil reserves,

18:30 which was announced quite early on by several countries worldwide.

18:34 But there is another pre-emptive measure that's

18:36 a bit more specific to the aviation industry,

18:39 and which means that not all airlines will be

18:42 immediately affected by what's happening to the same extent.

18:45 And that's fuel hedging.

18:47 Now, there's a few different versions of this, but the basic idea is

18:51 that an airline agrees to buy a large volume of fuel over a specific period,

18:56 usually several months, for a specific pre-agreed price.

19:01 When the market is nice and calm

19:02 and the world isn't enveloped in an intense geopolitical crisis,

19:06 fuel hedging means that an airline might pay

19:08 a bit more than the fluctuating market price of fuel.

19:11 But the upside is that its managers can make

19:14 key budgeting and financial planning decisions with less uncertainty.

19:18 But when a fuel crisis hits, the airlines that have hedged

19:21 their fuel obviously stand to benefit significantly.

19:25 Well, unless prices end up going down instead of up,

19:28 like they did in 2020, when almost nobody was flying or even driving.

19:33 So airlines that hedge fuel almost never hedge all of it.

19:37 Now, fuel hedging is still popular with airlines

19:39 in Europe and elsewhere in the world, but interestingly, it fell out of favor

19:44 in the United States recently in the post-pandemic years.

19:48 Airlines like Southwest used to rely heavily on fuel hedging

19:51 and historically made a lot of money thanks to it,

19:54 but they and United, American,

19:56 JetBlue and others have all exited their hedging programs.

20:00 But the one exception here is Delta Airlines.

20:03 Well, sort of.

20:05 Delta doesn't have a normal fuel hedging program in play,

20:08 but they are technically hedging in a different way.

20:12 They have their very own oil refinery.

20:15 Delta's wholly-owned subsidiary Monroe Energy has

20:18 a production capacity of 185,000 barrels per day.

20:22 And according to DWU Consulting, it provides an implicit hedge that covers 40%

20:28 to 50% of Delta's needs in jet fuel, which sounds promising for them.

20:33 But again, even for hedged airlines, this is a short-term solution that can't

20:38 shield them from high crude oil forever.

20:40 And there's also more factors to look

20:42 for in this crisis that are still really hard to quantify.

20:46 For example, a lot of cargo depends on Gulf routes

20:49 including time-sensitive goods like pharmaceuticals

20:52 moving between Europe, Asia and Africa.

20:54 Capacity for such cargo is going down,

20:57 but seafaring cargo capacity is also getting

21:00 disrupted and affected by higher fuel prices.

21:03 So it's going to take some time before

21:05 we really know what these markets look like.

21:08 Finally, a lot will depend on how long-lasting this crisis becomes.

21:12 In the past, enduring shocks, especially those affecting fuel prices,

21:17 have literally reshaped the aviation industry, and they did so more than once.

21:22 In the 1970s, the oil crisis forced airlines to rethink the design

21:27 of entire fleets and accelerated the transition

21:29 towards more efficient high-bypass turbofan engines.

21:33 The 1990 Gulf War hit legacy carriers like Swissair

21:37 and others who were already struggling to stay relevant after deregulation.

21:41 And after 9/11, the year-long crisis forced airlines to retire large

21:46 fleets of older jets and consolidate around newer or updated designs.

21:51 So, are we about to see something like that again after this crisis?

21:56 Could it perhaps accelerate fleet replacements in some markets?

22:00 Well, only time will tell, but let us know what you think in the comments below.

22:05 This, of course, is a rapidly evolving crisis and a moving

22:08 target for airlines and analysts and channels like ours,

22:11 so we'll obviously have to come back to it, but hopefully with better news.

22:16 Anyway, we hope you enjoyed the video, and again,

22:18 let us know in the comments below if

22:20 there's anything else you think we should cover.

22:22 I'm Ben Watts.

22:23 You're watching Mentour Now!

22:25 Have an amazing week and I'll see you next time.