The sudden closure of Middle Eastern airspace and airports after the US-Israeli strikes on Iran at the weekend has exposed the fact that Qantas has effectively outsourced a huge swath of international travel to the world’s largest airline, Emirates.
Some of the world’s largest airline hubs have been shuttered, such as in Dubai (Emirates), Doha (Qatar) and Abu Dhabi (Etihad). At least 115,000 Australians are stranded in the region, and tens of thousands more who were preparing to travel to Europe, the UK, Africa, as well as foreign tourists and business people returning home, remain largely in limbo.