SYDNEY/LONDON –
In the remote Western Australian town of Dardanup, accountant Natasha Earle and her family are feeling the financial pain of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran. Their “once-in-a-lifetime” five-week trip to Europe — booked last May on Emirates and taking them to London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna and Rome — has been upended by the conflict, and is costing roughly A$10,000 ($7,000) more as they reroute to avoid disruptions from drone and missile fire in the Middle East.
“We’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars on this holiday,” said Earle, who is due to fly at the end of this month amid the biggest disruption to global travel since the pandemic. “We should get at least half of that back from Emirates eventually.” With the Gulf serving as a global crossroads for commercial aviation, the Iran conflict underscores how quickly a problem in a single region can paralyze travel worldwide, driving up prices, squeezing capacity and throwing holiday plans into disarray.
Drone and missile fire have regularly left aircraft circling near Dubai as the war enters its third week, heavily impacting Middle East tourism worth some $367 billion annually to the region.
AloJapan.com