{"id":565071,"date":"2026-03-26T06:38:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:38:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565071\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T06:38:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:38:14","slug":"airline-increases-australia-europe-flights-amid-iran-war-fallout-and-middle-east-disruptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/565071\/","title":{"rendered":"Airline increases Australia-Europe flights amid Iran war fallout and Middle East disruptions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chris<\/p>\n

March 26, 2026 \u2014 4:40pm<\/p>\n

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Qantas will increase flights between Australia and Europe, as it responds to the strong demand driven by the fallout from the Iran war, which has led to thousands of flight cancellations<\/a> by airlines using the Persian Gulf as a transit hub.<\/p>\n

The nation\u2019s biggest airline will increase flights to Paris from three to five a week, leaving from Sydney and transiting through Singapore. Departing from Sydney rather than Perth, where the flights are currently originating, will add 60 more seats on each flight, it said. Qantas will also fly daily now from Perth to Rome, up from four flights a week.<\/p>\n

The stepped up schedule is achieved by using smaller planes on US flights and redeploying the airline\u2019s larger Boeing 787s to the UK and Europe, which is freeing up 1400 additional seats for those flights, Qantas said.<\/p>\n

\"QantasQantas is ramping up its schedule to tap into travellers\u2019 scramble for flights to Europe amid the Iran war.<\/p>\n

Qantas, like other major carriers, is responding to the disruptions in the Middle East, which have seen travel options through hubs such as Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi practically disappear as airlines were forced to cancel flights due to safety concerns. That in turn has increased appetite for flights between Australia and Europe that avoid the region, and has sent ticket prices through the roof.<\/p>\n

A Sydney to London one-way ticket now averages more than $1500, roughly double last year\u2019s price, according to an Alton Aviation Consultancy analysis of data from analytics firm Cirium.<\/p>\n

Seeking to capture the stepped-up demand, the airline will also increase its Perth-Singapore service to 10 flights per week, timed to connect with its Singapore-Paris flights. At the same time, it will continue its daily Perth to London service via Singapore, even as it offers a direct London-Perth connection.<\/p>\n

The changes take effect progressively for flights from mid-April and run until late July. Qantas is doing this by redeploying some Boeing 787s out of US routes and moving some Airbus A330 used for domestic flights onto international routes. It didn\u2019t immediately respond to questions about pricing for the new flights, having increased fares on all international routes earlier this month.<\/a><\/p>\n

Qantas\u2019 schedule changes come as airlines and governments around the world are bracing for a shortfall of jet fuel supply as the fallout from the Iran war continues to ripple through the aviation industry, forcing carriers to avoid critical Middle Eastern hubs for months to come amid safety concerns.<\/p>\n

\"It\u2019sIt\u2019s dark skies ahead for airlines as they try and navigate through the fuel and safety crisis created by the war in the Middle East.Bloomberg<\/p>\n

Asia is particularly affected, due to its dependence on Mideast oil and its vulnerability to shortages linked to Iran\u2019s effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz<\/a>. Starting to feel the crunch from what is quickly shaping up as the biggest oil crisis since the 1970s, Asian governments are looking at fuel restrictions or rations to prevent domestic shortages, and airlines are making contingency plans.<\/p>\n

While gulf carriers such as Emirates and Qatar Airways \u2013 international code-share partners of Qantas and Virgin Australia, respectively \u2013 continue to operate in the conflict region, albeit on vastly reduced schedules, Asian airlines such Cathay Pacific, Japan Airlines and Singapore Airlines have suspended their flights into the Middle East for the next two months.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"President<\/a><\/p>\n

Some international airlines have taken the region off their flight map for even longer, with Lufthansa confirming it has suspended most flights to the Middle East until late October<\/a> \u201cdue to the volatile situation\u201d. US aviation giant United Airlines\u2019 chief executive Scott Kirby said this week his airline won\u2019t fly back into the Middle East until October at the earliest.<\/p>\n

Kirby said flying commercial planes in an area targeted by drones and missiles is \u201coutside the envelope of\u201d what United would be \u201cwilling to do\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that the war will end, and people will once again feel safe in the region,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Yet oil prices will remain \u201chigher for longer\u201d as the conflict and its aftermath play out for global markets, he warned.<\/p>\n

After Brent crude oil prices shot as high as $US120 per barrel last week on the back of the hostilities, they have come back to $US98 on Thursday amid hopes a 15-point US peace plan could pave the way for an end to the war with Iran. Jet fuel has been particularly squeezed \u2013 almost doubling in price.<\/p>\n

Despite hedging themselves against fuel price fluctuations, both Qantas and Virgin have hiked their airfares in response to the conflict. Qantas also pointed out that while it hedges the oil price, it doesn\u2019t hedge the more volatile refining margins, or the cost of refineries to produce the jet fuel.<\/p>\n

In this environment, airline ticket prices have jumped by an estimated 15 to 20 per cent since the conflict began at the end of February, Kirby said.<\/p>\n

Tehran\u2019s war strategy of striking neighbouring oil-producing countries in the Persian Gulf in retaliation for the US-Israel attacks, and blocking the crucial Strait of Hormuz, through which 20 per cent of the global oil supplies sails, has caught the US off guard.<\/p>\n

With uncertainty about the length of the war and its follow-on effects spreading, Asian countries are scrambling to secure supply and protect their fuel stocks.<\/p>\n

South Korean airlines have been notified about refuelling restrictions by some countries, and their government is discussing whether to redirect export-bound jet fuel to its domestic market, the nation\u2019s transport ministry said in a statement to Bloomberg on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

China and Thailand have tightened curbs on refined fuel exports to protect their own strategic stocks, while Australia temporarily cut 20 per cent in its minimum stockholding obligations for diesel and petrol amid dwindling imports. However, the country only produces 20 per cent of the jet fuel it needs.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"A<\/a><\/p>\n

In another sign of the war\u2019s impact on aviation, Singapore has announced a delay on a planned sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) levy that airline customers were meant to start paying next month, due to the surge in fuel costs spurred by the Iran war. The extra charges will now begin October 1, Singapore\u2019s civil aviation authority said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Philippine Airlines\u2019 president Richard Nuttall said the South-East Asian nation may soon resort to fuel rationing. In Vietnam, the aviation agency warned of potential jet fuel shortages from early April, and is cutting flights as a result.<\/p>\n

Closer to home, Qantas\u2019 budget carrier Jetstar this week cut more than 10 per cent of its flights between Australia and New Zealand, and within New Zealand in a move described as \u201ctemporary\u201d.<\/p>\n

How temporary it is will depend on how much longer the almost-four-week-old war drags on.<\/p>\n

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\"ChrisChris Zappone<\/a> is a senior reporter covering aviation and business. He is former digital foreign editor.Connect via X<\/a>, Facebook<\/a> or email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 26, 2026 \u2014 4:40pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":565072,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44],"class_list":{"0":"post-565071","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-australia","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=565071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/565071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/565072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=565071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=565071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=565071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}