JFK-BOM Cancellation?
 

Hey guys. The FAA today banned all US airlines from flying over the Persian Gulf. Would the JFK-BOM flight then be cancelled until things de-escalate?

They detour. During previous situations like this it may take an hour or so longer than scheduled, leading to delays of the return flight.

Longer term, the route could be rescheduled or suspended, but unless the assigned aircraft doesn't have sufficient range to fly the detour, delays should be the only problem on the route.

Here is today's flight as an example of their route.
https://cimg5.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...5cf9286b59.png

That's quite a busy and crowded "highway" of flights just to the west and southwest of the Iranian border. By contrast, the route DL chose looks empty.

I feel like UAE, Saudi, and Qatari ATC really have their work cut out for them.

The problem becomes longer term if the current aircraft allocations cannot service the route. This is what leads to frequency reductions unless the PRASM supports shorting some other route.

I thought US airlines already didn't overfly Iran? As long as Pakistani airspace remains open I don't think this affects US flights to India.

Yeah, IIRC, I think Pakistan was the issue when UA had to suspend EWR-BOM for a while.
The Great Circle Routing doesn't overfly Iran anyway (but comes close) and there's probably no real reason to deviate meaningfully from that (as opposed to something like HKG->NYC that often routes over the longer north Pacific routing to take advantage of strong headwinds vs. the shorter polar routing).

I found this flight path interesting from Dec 24 (JFK-BOM). With the current FAA restrictions I don't think this would be allowed though.
https://cimg7.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...bb6b92ce1f.png

Hmm, I guess the jetstream must have been particularly strong and particularly south, looks like that routing adds ~500 miles or 7% to the journey. Or maybe perhaps there were geopolitical considerations (unrelated to Iran).

Yes, Pakistan was on the GC route and also they couldn't overfly Iran (and I think they generally avoid Iraq too) and that made the flights very difficult for UA.

Back in April, flying KL LAX-AMS-BKK and return we took detours in both direction to avoid the India/Pakistan border regions. Added about an hour each way as I recall.

Yes that was when Pakistan airspace was closed off. I did a couple of the LAX-AMS-BKK RT Z sales on KLM when they were offered.