EK159 avoiding conflict zones

The blog article before this one examines the practice of routing civil flights through designated conflict zones when there are lower-risk alternatives.

Maybe Emirates was listening, because this morning it didn’t route its Dubai-Oslo schedule (EK159) through Iran and Russia as it did yesterday. Instead it took the route pictured below (courtesy of Flightradar24).

We also noticed yesterday that Turkish Airlines re-routed its Istanbul – Mumbai schedule to avoid Iranian airspace.

Also possible as an explanation for the changes is that Emirates, which has not responded to my questions about its routeing choices, and Turkish Airlines, have carried out a dispatch risk assessment and decided that gathering American military task forces in the region, combined with White House sabre rattling directed at Teheran, cannot be ignored.

Sensible choice. Finally.