EU Aviation Regulator Advises Airlines to Avoid Iranian Airspace

Risks of Operating in Iranian Airspace

Jan 16 (Reuters) - The European Union's aviation regulator on Friday recommended the bloc's airlines stay out of Iran's airspace, amid simmering tensions over Tehran's deadly crackdown on protests and U.S. threats of intervention.

Background of Protests

"The presence and possible use of a wide range of weapons and air-defence systems, combined with unpredictable state responses ... creates a high risk to civil flights operating at all altitudes and flight levels," the European Union Aviation Safety Agency said in a bulletin.

Impact on Airlines

Protests in Iran erupted on December 28 over economic hardship and swelled into widespread demonstrations calling for the end of clerical rule, culminating in mass violence at the end of last week.

Historical Context

The crackdown appears to have broadly quelled protests for now, residents said on Friday, as state media reported more arrests in the shadow of repeated U.S. threats to intervene if the killing continued.

With ongoing tensions and the potential for U.S. military action, which has placed Iranian air defence forces on a heightened state of alert, there is an increased likelihood of misidentification within Iranian airspace, EASA's advisory said. 

Iran reopened its airspace on Wednesday after a near-five-hour closure amid concerns about possible military action that forced airlines to cancel, reroute or delay some flights.

European airlines including Wizz Air, Lufthansa and British Airways continued to avoid Iran and Iraq on Thursday despite airspace reopening, according to data from flight tracking websites.

In January 2020, an Iranian surface-to-air missile brought down a Ukrainian passenger plane, killing all 176 people abroad. Iranian authorities eventually blamed the action on human error, amid military tensions between Iran and the United States.

(Reporting by Gursimran Kaur; Editing by Mark Potter and Cynthia Osterman)