BA Humbug

This wa


This was my route to Dubai a few days ago, leaning on the Iraqi side of the two borders. Seems to be business as usual.

flatlander

There is also a non-technical reason for the US being unable rapidly to increase exports of oil to the world. The USA still prohibits the export of raw crude to keep their domestic oil prices low. Currently this rule is being skirted by shipping out partially processed product and due to the current oil and gas glut in the USA, this isn't affecting US domestic prices so the US Government doesn't care. However these exports are limited by processing capacity - while not needing an entire refinery, it still needs a processing plant and the US oil well cannot be connected directly to a tanker. The US Government could also change the rules or enforce them differently. Transport capacity inside the USA is also an issue, with many wells relying on railway tankers rather than pipelines.

So global supply deficits cannot be made up from the USA, even if US wells could produce more at short notice.

Regarding airline routing, I am sure that many airlines are very sensitive to the possibility of being caught in the crossfire. The shooting-down of MH17 is on every airline operations person's mind, and the US Navy has had targeting issues in this area in the past (IR655). I'm not surprised that more cautious airlines (and BA is certainly among those) would deviate from the Persian Gulf area in the near future.

ClubflyerLondon

flew into LCA last night was sat next to a us military contractor in row 1, he had several colleagues in club too sounds like the US are gearing up for something major in the region,

OverTheHorizon

So our long weekend in Dubai in early Feb not such a great idea then ?

AnaTravel

Bad timing for me as I was just about to book flights to the ME; to include Cairo in January, UAE in February and Israel in March. Some other destinations to be booked and routing through problematic Doha also. I'm going to hold off for a week and see what happens.

alvinlwh

A selfish question here, I have a flight to SIN in less than 2 weeks, is BA avoiding Iran airspace?

charlesrhona

Like you I am also travelling to SYD via SIN on just over 2 weeks time. From Flightradar 24 BA are still overflying Iran. However SIA are diverting around Iran for their LHR - SIN flights.

WLX

Looks like maybe they are avoiding it but also perhaps they don’t need to cross it anyway.

https://uk.flightaware.com/live/flig...905Z/EGLL/WSSS

alex67500

Actually if you look over the last 4 days it looks like they're actively avoiding both Ukraine (twice North, twice South) and Iran.

charlesrhona

Not if you look at the BA15.

Greenpen

What's a "contractor"? To me it's a building company but seems to represent something more in the USA world.

navylad

It is an individual or a company that provides goods of services to another organisation on the basis of a contract.

in this context, it likely means someone who works for a private military company, often contracted by the US government to provide private security services. There are also terms security contractors or private military contractors.

They are often individual who are ex military, SF or close protection police.

Blumie

I would not change Dubai travel plans. I returned to Abu Dhabi on Thursday (and will drive to Dubai over the weekend) and still feel safer here than in most other parts of the world.

Obruni Boy

What's a "contractor"?

I get the new speak of someone providing a military service but I personally prefer the old speak word of mercenary. I have no issue with the profession but would prefer to call a spade a spade.

navylad

a mercenary is by definition both foreign to the hiring ‘army/giverment’ but also someone individually employed- sorry but that isn’t calling a spade a spade IMHO, they are very different things!