\u201cI\u2019ve never seen so many aircraft<\/a> over Afghanistan as I have in the past few weeks.\u201d So said the airline captain I talked to yesterday. He was about to fly to India (where he landed safely earlier this morning). With so much of the skies closed to commercial aviation<\/a>, a country previously regarded as an airspace pariah is now the transit nation of choice for pilots heading for south Asia.<\/p>\n A month ago, the airline world looked very different. Until the early hours of 28 February, a steady stream of planes trekked across Iran between the Gulf and the UK. The Middle East superhighway was the natural choice from leading British airports<\/a> to Asia and beyond. More than half the passengers between the UK and Australia<\/a> used Emirates, Etihad or Qatar Airways via Dubai, Abu Dhabi Doha, respectively. Those three airports are now on the Foreign Office no-go list \u2013 and are operating a fraction of their planned schedules.<\/p>\n Meanwhile their rivals prosper by swerving the Gulf. On Qantas, a one-way trip from London to Perth in economy is selling for almost \u00a32,000 early next month. Such fares help to explain why Qantas passengers on long domestic routes in Australia are crammed into Boeing 737s. Where have those comfortable, wide-bodied Airbus A330 jets gone? On Pacific routes, that\u2019s where, to free up Boeing 787s. Those ultra-long-range jets are needed for the really lucrative part of the Qantas network: between Australia and Europe.<\/p>\n Yesterday the Australian carrier revealed plans to increase capacity to and from Europe by 400 seats a day<\/a>, largely by boosting flights<\/a> from Paris to Sydney and Rome to Perth. For a trip to Australia you might consider a no-frills hop to the French or Italian capitals \u2013 thereby also dodging the sky-high air passenger duty of \u00a3106<\/a> that takes effect on ultra-long-haul journeys from Wednesday.<\/p>\n The \u201cMiddle East 3\u201d (Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways) are collectively losing tens of millions of pounds each day. Even the few giant planes they are operating from Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester to the Gulf are half empty, I understand. The repercussions for the local tourism industry of vanished visitors go even deeper. While Iranian drones and missiles still pose a threat to the UAE and Qatar, those states will remain off-limits to many travellers. But the ME3 are desperate to return at scale. In the time-honoured fashion they will cut prices as low as necessary to fill the planes. That \u00a32,000 one-way economy fare to Australia is not about to normalise.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Australia_Qantas_05016.jpg\")
A Qantas Boeing 737 passenger plane takes off from Sydney Airport (AP)<\/p>\n