Major Airlines re-route flights after US drone shot down by Iran

Major airlines from around the world on Friday began cancelling or rerouting their flights to avoid areas around the Strait of Hormuz after a U.S. military surveillance drone was shot down by Iran.

The Federal Aviation Administration warned of a “potential for miscalculation or misidentification” in the region after an Iranian surface-to-air missile on Thursday brought down a U.S. Navy RQ-4A Global Hawk, an unmanned aircraft with a wingspan larger than a Boeing 737 jetliner and costing over $100 million.

In response the U.S. said it made plans for limited strikes on Iran, but then called them off.

Australia’s Qantas, British Airways, United Airlines, Dutch carrier KLM, Emirates, Germany’s Lufthansa, Malaysia Airlines and Singapore Airlines said soon afterward that they will avoid the region as well.

United Airlines said: "Given current events in Iran, United has conducted a thorough safety and security review between New York/Newark and India (Mumbai) beginning this evening."

Dubai-based Emirates said it would be avoiding "areas of possible conflict".

A spokesperson for the airline said: "We are carefully monitoring the ongoing developments and are in close contact with the relevant government authorities with regards to our flight operations, and will make further operational changes if the need arises."

British Airways says it will adhere to FAA guidance, avoiding Iranian airspace. It says flights will continue to operate using alternative flight paths.

The FAA made a similar warning in May to commercial airliners of the possibility of Iranian anti-aircraft gunners mistaking them for military aircraft, something dismissed by Tehran some 30 years after the U.S. Navy shot down an Iranian passenger jet.

Iran had no immediate reaction to the U.S. announcement.

There are “heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the region, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations and potential for miscalculation or misidentification,” the FAA said.

“The risk to U.S. civil aviation is demonstrated by the Iranian surface-to-air missile shoot-down of a U.S. unmanned aircraft system on 19 June 2019 while it was operating in the vicinity of civil air routes above the Gulf of Oman.”