Originally Posted by
bodory
Internal AF sources say that the airline very recently decided to avoid Iran airspace because of US sanctions. Among affected flights is AF258 and the natural updated routing is going northerly, i.e. through Russia.
That’s indeed a very valid reason to change the flight path, and not only for AF as I think most western airlines will struggle to pay fees to Iran ATC.
On my very recent flight to DXB on AF, I noticed that we never flew over Iran but always above the Persian gulf. (While before, I think we were flying over Iran). But I noticed also we flew over Iraq and that was new to me too. Syrian airspace is still avoided.