• Salt Lake City to Toronto: suspension effective June 30, 2026, with plans to resume in 2027
• New York JFK to Toronto: suspension effective June 1, 2026, with plans to resume October 25, 2026
• New York JFK to Montreal: suspension effective June 1, 2026, with plans to resume October 25, 2026

The carrier is also trimming flight frequencies across its network. The total cuts will make up about 1% of its planned capacity for 2026.

KLM

Amsterdam-based KLM has canceled a limited number of flights within Europe that it says are “are currently no longer financially viable to operate” due to higher fuel costs. The carrier will operate 80 fewer roundtrip flights from its base at Schiphol Airport, which constitutes less than 1% of its European flight capacity.

Lufthansa

The German carrier is cutting 20,000 short-haul flights throughout Europe into October. The regional hops are no longer profitable to operate given the higher cost of jet fuel, according to the carrier. Affected routes include connecting flights to and from Heringsdorf, Cork, Gdańsk, Ljubljana, Rijeka, Sibiu, Stuttgart, Trondheim, Tivat, and Wrocław. The carrier says that the first 120 daily flight cancellations have been made through May 31. The cancellations will result in jet fuel savings of more than 40,000 metric tons.

What should I do if my flight is canceled?

Passengers with canceled flights can expect to be notified by their airline and offered alternate options to make it to their destination. “The airlines are incentivized to accommodate you if they change their flight schedule, and for most places in the world, there are more than one flight per day, and more than one airline operating,” Arnot says.

Don’t forget that if your flight is canceled, you are entitled to certain rights. “Travelers have to remember they are covered under US federal regulation if any part of the international flight, departing or coming into the US is canceled to receive a refund or a rebooked flight,” Nastro says.

If your airline automatically rebooks you on a new flight, you don’t have to accept it if it’s not an appealing alternative. Instead, you can ask for a full refund for any unused portions of your ticket.

What travelers should consider before booking summer flights

To help reduce the chances of a cancellation, try to prioritize direct flights that operate during peak travel times, Nastro advises. While this “doesn’t grant you immunity from schedule changes, it does help your odds,” she says.

If you’re still looking for affordable flights for summer, purchase your tickets as soon as possible. “The best protection you can do for yourself is not to wait, but book now, especially if you see something within your budget,” Nastro says.

Additionally, avoid basic economy fares. Instead, opt for main economy tickets, which offer more flexible flight change and cancellation policies. That way you can monitor price fluctuations on your route (by setting a Google Flights alert, for example). Then, if you notice a price drop, you can cancel your original booking and rebook the cheaper airfare. “Not many people know there usually is no limit to the amount of times you can take advantage of this,” Nastro says.

Last year, I spent Labor Day weekend booking 20-odd one-way flights in madcap pursuit of airline status: 25 years’ worth of JetBlue’s elite status, to be specific. A 2025 promotion promised JetBlue travelers the opportunity to earn up to 350,000 points and 25 years of elite status, and I saw an opportunity to maximize existing plans for personal and business travel.

Some of those flights brought me to Lady Gaga’s Mayhem Ball Tour at New York City’s Madison Square Garden the night she won Artist of the Year at the VMAs, helped me to visit family on the East Coast, and allowed me to try out JetBlue’s Mint lie-flat business seat on a work trip to Las Vegas. Others, like beachy overnights in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, were purely for leisure.

All in all, it was a hectic but thrilling season: Over three concerted “mileage runs” between September 2 and December 11, 2025, I flew a grand total of 40 flights to reach 25 unique JetBlue destinations, spending around $2,800 in points and cash to score 350,000 JetBlue points and 25 years of Mosaic 1 status, JetBlue’s entry-level loyalty tier.

But is earning JetBlue elite status worth that much effort? Here’s why it was for me—and why it might be worth it (or not) for you.

JetBlue’s challenge

In June 2025, JetBlue’s marketing team launched a creative campaign celebrating the airline’s 25 years in the travel and aviation business. The “25 for 25” challenge offered big rewards for travelers who visited 25 unique JetBlue destinations before the end of 2025.

The rules: Successful challengers earned 150,000 JetBlue TrueBlue points after landing in 15 unique airports; an additional 200,000 points upon reaching 20 total destinations; and 25 years of Mosaic I elite status after reaching that elusive 25th destination. All told, 2,370 people participated with a 90% completion rate, earning a cumulative 811.5 million TrueBlue points in the process, according to JetBlue.

JetBlue’s 25 for 25 challenge was a clever, eye-catching premise engineered by the company, perhaps more so than even they realized: More than 250 participants had never flown JetBlue before, and 730 travelers had flown with JetBlue 10 or less times before embarking on the challenge, according to the airline.

However, all the sudden attention may have brought JetBlue more scrutiny than intended, especially for an airline that’s floundered financially in recent years. The carrier spent several years trying to acquire Spirit Airlines as a way to quickly scale its competitive advantages. But the merger fell through in 2024 after the Department of Justice claimed it would violate aviation antitrust laws. Since then, JetBlue has struggled to effectively convert revenue into profit, struggling to balance rising operational costs against limited opportunities for growth and expansion.

Cost-cutting efforts haven’t been favorably met by loyalists, who are still adjusting to a recent decrease in elite benefits. In late 2025, JetBlue announced updates to their Mosaic loyalty program that went into effect in February 2026, removing or scaling back beloved perks including fewer free checked bags, fewer free drinks, and fewer premium seating choices for Mosaic members traveling with companions.

What’s JetBlue Mosaic status worth in 2026?

JetBlue offers four tiers of Mosaic status, with Mosaic 1 being the lowest and Mosaic 4 being the highest. All members get one free alcoholic drink per flight, enjoy same-day flight changes when available, and can choose their own seats within the standard seat map on the plane.

Benefits increase from Mosaic 2 up, with upgraded seating available at booking time instead of check-in time. Additional perks are marginal for Mosaic 3 and Mosaic 4, with the primary difference being dedicated phone support, upgrade certificates for premium seating, and access to JetBlue’s new airport lounge at New York-JFK Terminal 5 for Mosaic 4 members.

Every airline passenger knows flight attendants give critical safety guidance during their pre-takeoff briefings about seatbelts and emergency exits. But many observant passengers often watch cabin crew throughout the flight for unspoken safety cues, too.

If you’re one of these watchful fliers, you might have noticed a certain way that cabin crew sit during takeoff and landing: on their hands. If you’re a nervous—or simply curious—flier, you might be wondering why flight attendants sit in this peculiar way; whether it indicates a potential emergency; or if passengers should follow suit.

Fortunately, nervous fliers don’t need to worry when they see this, as it’s standard operating procedure for cabin crew that applies to every flight. “In aviation, we call this position the ‘brace position’ for flight attendants,” says Lia Ocampo, a former flight attendant and the author of the memoir Life, Love, and Lessons in the Sky. Brace positions are a safety protocol that flight attendants follow in case of accidents and sudden emergencies.

Assuming a brace position means strategically positioning parts of the body such as the head and arms, by flexing, bending, and leaning forward to help reduce any potential impacts that may occur. “The brace position for flight attendants depends on the direction their seats face, and the type of restraint system those seats are equipped with,” Ocampo says.

One of the most common brace positions involves flight attendants sitting on their hands to keep the arms secured to the body. “During the critical phases of flight, which are takeoff and landing, you see flight attendants sitting on their jumpseats in a brace position,” Ocampo says. “If passengers see flight attendants do this, it means they are doing the right thing and fulfilling their role in ensuring safety.”

This isn’t the only way flight attendants ensure safety during takeoff. While seated on their hands, cabin crew also conduct a silent review, or go over a mental checklist of key safety elements that might be needed during critical flight phases, according to Ocampo. These include reviewing the locations of the emergency exits and how to operate them, identifying passengers who could potentially assist crew in an emergency, going over the commands to use during an emergency, and checking the location of other evacuation equipment that would be needed in case of emergency.

Although fliers don’t necessarily need to sit on their hands during takeoff and landing, there are situations when passengers might be told to adopt a brace position to mitigate chances of injuries. Information on the correct position can be found on the safety card in the seatback pocket, which passengers should always read before takeoff. “In a planned emergency, flight attendants will brief passengers on what to do, including brace-for-impact positions,” says Ocampo. ‘However, during an unplanned emergency, they may not have time to do so.”

Reading the safety card every time you board a plane, as well as listening to the crew’s safety briefing, can help ensure fliers are prepared for an unexpected emergency. Flight attendants are highly trained safety professionals who know how to react in an emergency, and passengers should always pay close attention when they are speaking about safety matters.

Even frequent fliers should listen intently to every safety briefing, as there could be new information, depending on the type of aircraft or cabin class. “Traveling today has its challenges and setbacks,” Ocampo says. “But if we travel prepared and with a positive mindset, we can overcome some of those challenges and make our journey safer and more enjoyable.”

Which airlines have suspending flights to the Middle East?

Many international airlines are continuing to suspend or adjust services to the Middle East. Travelers should check their airline’s website or app for the latest information.

Cathay Pacific: Hong Kong-based carrier Cathay Pacific has cancelled all flights to and from Dubai and Riyadh until at least May 31. Customers booked to travel up until then may rebook, reroute, or refund their tickets as per the airline’s ticket waiver policy.

British Airways: Per an April 2 update, British Airways has cancelled all flights between London Heathrow and Amman, Bahrain, Dubai, and Tel Aviv up to and including May 31. Its Doha route will be reinstated at the end of April. Its daily flight between London and Abu Dhabi has been suspended until later this year.

Lufthansa: German carrier Lufthansa has ⁠suspended flights to Abu Dhabi, Amman, Beirut, Dammam, Riyadh, Erbil, Muscat, and Tehran, until Saturday, October 24, 2026. Its Dubai and Tel Aviv routes are on pause until Sunday, May 31.

KLM: According to a March 19 update, Dutch airline KLM has cancelled all flights to and from Dubai, Riyadh, and Dammam up until and including Sunday, May 17.

Air Canada: Air Canada has cancelled all flights to Dubai and Tel Aviv until September 7, 2026.

Singapore Airlines: Singapore Airlines has extended its suspension of flights between Singapore and Dubai until May 31, 2026.

Is airspace across the Middle East still closed?

As mentioned above, airspace across many parts of the Middle East is still closed or impacted, and as this ceasefire is temporary, that is likely to remain the case. Safe corridors continue to allow flights to operate through UAE and Qatari airspace, while large parts of Saudi Arabian airspace remain open. Airspace in Oman has been largely unaffected by the conflict.

However, airspace in Bahrain and Kuwait remains closed, with both countries currently operating a very limited number of flights from Dammam in Saudi Arabia. Airspace in Iran remains closed.

Have governments updated their travel advisories?

As of Wednesday morning, the temporary ceasefire has not caused international governments to alter their travel advice for countries impacted by the conflict, and until a permanent end to the conflict is agreed, they are likely to continue to warn against all but essential travel, as the situation could still change at very short notice.

United Kingdom: As of April 8, the United Kingdom is advising against all but essential travel to Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, and the UAE, instructing British nationals in those countries to follow guidance from the local authorities.

United States: The US State Department’s advice for the region, including Bahrain, Kuwait, Israel, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, remains at level three: reconsider travel. Level four (do not travel countries) are now Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. Travelers to Egypt, which remains ranked at level two, should “exercise increased caution.”

When I could no longer fight my body’s hunger signals, I stopped pretending to be asleep. Getting served a meal when you’re ready for it versus when it’s time, has to be one of the greatest luxuries of flying in the front. Despite licking clean my first two courses, I managed to leave room for dessert: a banana cheesecake with butter crumble and a selection of cheeses. In upper cabins, I told myself, time is fake and the food is constant.

In that spirit, lunch service had barely ended before I gave in to a childhood comfort and ordered a Milo—a chocolate malt beverage familiar to anyone who grew up in Asia. It arrived with more snacks: muffins, chocolate, and chips. “You can have them all,” said the attendant as I wavered.

Warm mug in hand, I turned to Scenes From a Marriage with Jessica Chastain—an ill-timed choice as it turned me into a sniveling mess. Why is it that we’re so prone to tears at 30,000 feet? Singapore Airlines’ entertainment isn’t wildly different from any other airline, but I enjoyed the range of live television to choose from, from BBC News to a Premier League football match.

If I’m honest, it was the 10-hour mark that weighed most heavily—that strange, suspended stretch that feels like no-man’s-land, when neither departure nor arrival feel graspable. That’s when you order a Kris Sling, the airline’s riff on the Raffles Hotel classic, a tropical holiday in cocktail form. If you’re lucky, it might even coax you into a second nap.

Chapter 3 (12 hours – landing)

Start readjusting for eventual arrival; log into Wi-Fi and do some prep for the week ahead

I was roused by a big, lusty scent drifting through the cabin that unmistakably belonged to a satay chicken. Things were looking up. I’d picked the Singapore carrot cake with prawns for my final meal, which turned out to be a deeply satisfying dish made of radish and rice flour, with prawn and pickled turnip. At 35,000 feet, the physics (and chemistry) of heating and serving complex foods is a minor miracle, but Singapore Airlines appears to be onto something—everything I tasted would hold its own at any restaurant on solid ground.

Another strong suit of Singapore Airlines is the dependable Wi-Fi. It’s available across all cabins once you’re cruising above 10,000 feet, though I deliberately held off until the final-thirds of the flight. It is what kept me from clinging on to my devices when I could be doing almost anything else (eating, mostly—sleeping, some). There’s plenty of time for emails when you land.

I liked using this stretch of my journey, too, to get to know the crew. They’re at their most relaxed in that in-between hour—after the final service and before landing preparation begins. As it happened, the head of the cabin had the same idea and stopped by for a chat. We got on instantly; she was a BTS super fan and made an ambitious attempt to recruit me.

Somewhere during the conversation, I presented her with a slightly odd request. On a previous Singapore Airlines flight, in economy, I’d been offered a snack of Ikan Bilis, a store-bought bun stuffed with chili anchovies, the kind you might find at a 7-Eleven in Singapore. I hadn’t thought to pick one up on this last trip and wondered if there might be any on board. She smiled and said she’d check, though she doubted it.

For travelers in North America, Europe and the closer Asia hubs like Japan and Singapore are your likely new connection points to reach South Asia and beyond. Singapore’s Changi airport, a longstanding favorite in the region, is reachable from both the US East and West Coast for further connections on Singapore Airlines. Tokyo’s Haneda and Narita airports offer extensive onward connections across Southeast Asia on Japan Airlines and ANA, while Seoul’s Incheon — another top-rated airport—connects easily to Bangkok, Singapore, Manila, and beyond on Korean Air.

Some airlines are adding extra flights to help meet the shifting demand. Lufthansa, for example, said it was adding more flights between Germany and Singapore, Cape Town, and Riyadh, while its group partner Austrian Airlines said it had scheduled 10 special flights from Vienna to Bangkok.

Air Canada has added larger aircraft to its daily Toronto-London-Mumbai flights (and operated an extra daily flight for three weeks, ending on March 21, to provide extra capacity). British Airways added seven round trips from London to Bangkok and Singapore totaling more than 3,000 seats “to meet rising demand for these routes as a result of the situation in the Middle East.” (The UK carrier hopes to resume flights to Qatar at the end of April.)

The problem is that the rest of the world’s aviation network was not built to absorb a hole this size. Air India and Virgin Atlantic have added capacity with larger planes between Europe and India, according to Cirium data, while most other airlines show the same capacity in March as compared to when fighting began last month. The same is true for flights between the US and Asia, where Korean Air and American Airlines have virtually the same number of seats available.

With fewer route options, travelers can expect to pay more for the most popular routes. “Before the fighting began, you might have been able to get a round-trip fare in business class on either United or Singapore Airlines for anywhere between $5,000 and $7,000 with some advanced planning,” says Harteveldt. “I just checked, and United Airlines now wants more than $18,000 for the same itinerary.”

Why some flight routes may take longer

Airlines are largely limited by a plane’s range when planning routes. When Russia’s airspace closed in 2022, the Gulf became aviation’s escape valve. Now the escape valve is gone, forcing flights through a narrow passage over the Caucasus Mountains (a region linking Eastern Europe and Western Asia)—or thousands of miles south around the conflict zone entirely.

Routes that previously stretched a plane to the maximum of its capabilities may no longer be able to fly nonstop with any change in flight plan. Air India has been among the most impacted, particularly on long-haul routes to North America. The carrier’s flights from India to the East Coast are now making technical stops in Rome or Vienna — a consequence of the conflict forcing aircraft further south over the Arabian Peninsula. It’s a fresh wrinkle for Air India, which was already contending with a ban on Indian carriers flying over Pakistani airspace that had long pushed these routes off their most direct path. The return trip requires no stop: westbound tailwinds shorten the journey enough that the plane stays within range.

President Donald Trump deployed roughly 150 Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into more than a dozen US airports across the country on Monday, after a partial government shutdown led to hours-long security lines and air travel chaos over the weekend. The president initially framed the move as an effort to relieve the long TSA lines and support the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), whose agents are calling out sick and resigning by the hundreds in their first week without pay due to the shutdown. But after the first full day of ICE’s deployment in airports, it remains unclear exactly what duties these immigration agents have been sent to perform. Still, travelers should be aware of their legal rights as they prepare to face a new kind of security hurdle en route to catch a flight.

While the government hasn’t released a list of the airports it’s sending ICE to, agents were confirmed to be present at 14 as of Monday evening: Chicago-O’Hare, Cleveland, Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta, William P. Hobby and George Bush Intercontinental in Houston, John F. Kennedy and Laguardia in New York, New Orleans, San Francisco, Luis Munoz Marin in San Juan, Newark, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and Southwest Florida International Airport in Fort Myers.

Travelers on social media documented ICE agents, mostly unmasked, standing around behind TSA agents observing their duties and walking around in small groups. The night before ICE was deployed into airports, a video went viral of them arresting a Guatemalan woman at the San Francisco airport in front of her child because she couldn’t prove her citizenship. The arrests of that woman and her family member were believed to be an “isolated incident,” SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel said in a statement, and unrelated to ICE assisting TSA at other airports.

“The airport’s role is to ensure the safe and efficient operation of the facility for all passengers and staff,” Yakel said. “We were not involved in or notified in advance of this incident. Airport operations continued without disruption, and there was no impact to flights or passenger processing.”

Trump said in an interview Monday that ICE will remain at airports until Congress agrees to fund the Department of Homeland Security fully, including ICE itself, and that we can expect the arrests at airports to continue. “ICE loves it because they’re able to now arrest illegals as they come into the country,” he told reporters. “It’s very fertile territory.”

Victoria Slatton, a former asylum officer and current immigration attorney at Slatton & Hass who has trained alongside TSA agents at Homeland Security, says she is advising any non-citizen without a green card to avoid air travel in the US right now unless it is an “absolute emergency.” And she would advise all travelers that their legal rights at airports are already diminished compared to elsewhere in public life. “As a general rule, all individuals have limited rights at airports,” she says. “The reasonable expectation of privacy that exists in most spaces does not apply in the same way at a security checkpoint. This is the legal baseline before ICE even enters the picture.”

Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE agents have authority to arrest anyone they believe to be undocumented or deportable–even if they’re serving in place of TSA agents at airports. “These are not two separate functions,” Slatton explains. “The agent checking your ID at the security line today is simultaneously an immigration enforcement officer. That dual role has no modern precedent in domestic airport security.”

Practically, this means that in addition to running your bags through the scanner and conducting physical pat-downs, the agents at security checkpoints may request proof of citizenship, ask personal questions, and demand to go through a traveler’s phone. And these situations may fall into some legal grey areas due to the unprecedented nature of immigration agents being deployed to airports. Travelers have the constitutional right to remain silent, for instance, but “asserting that right in a security line in front of an ICE agent carries real practical consequences including delays, additional scrutiny, and potential detention,” Slatton says. She adds that travelers also “can and should verbally state that they do not consent to a search of their device, but agents may still detain it. Anyone traveling with sensitive information on their phone should be aware of this gray area right now.”

The bottom line is that travelers should not physically resist officers and should document everything they safely can in case a legal challenge is necessary down the road. Non-citizens should carry immigration documents at all times and avoid air travel right now if possible. And every traveler, Slatton says, “should understand that the legal framework governing this deployment is brand new, actively unsettled, and likely heading to court.”

In other words, there’s a lot we simply don’t know yet.

Higher oil prices amid the conflict in Iran have already led some airlines to raise flight prices. Now, cruise vacations could get more expensive too.

At least one international cruise line has started adding fuel surcharges to some voyages in order to help cover the elevated cost of oil: Malaysia-based StarDream Cruises announced last week that it will add fuel surcharges to new bookings made after March 20 for its voyages through Asia. The extra fees will be about $19 to $26 per night for every guest age 2 and older, depending on the itinerary, the cruise line said.

Experts say it’s possible that cruise companies around the world could implement similar fee structures. And unlike airline fuel surcharges, cruise lines are able to retroactively add fees to voyages that have already been booked. It’s not unprecedented: “Fuel surcharges are not a stranger to the cruise industry,” says Leslie Fambrini, a Condé Nast Traveler travel specialist and the founder of Personalized Travel Consultants.

In fact, most cruise lines reserve the right to add fuel surcharges to fares that have already been purchased before the voyage takes place, Chris Woronka, director and senior equity analyst at Deutsche Bank, tells Traveler. “It’s in the fine print of the terms and conditions,” Woronka says. “What seems increasingly likely is that a surcharge might begin to be added to new itineraries.”

However, not all cruise lines will be equally affected by elevated oil prices. Some major lines participate in an industry process known as fuel hedging, in which they spend money upfront to lock in the cost of future fuel purchases in the hopes of creating pricing stability. Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line both hedge, and both lines said on their fourth quarter earnings calls that they were at least 50% hedged for 2026 fuel consumption. “That means they are absorbing only about half of the rise in fuel prices,” Woronka says. (Norwegian Cruise Line also owns luxury lines Regent Seven Seas and Oceania, and Royal Caribbean is the parent company for Celebrity Cruises and Silversea Cruises.)

Other major cruise brands, like Carnival, don’t hedge at all, and “thus fuel is having a greater impact on their bottom line financially right now,” according to Woronka. (Carnival owns Princess Cruises, Holland America, Cunard, and Seabourn.)

When will cruise lines start increasing prices?

Travelers should brace themselves to see those higher fares or surcharges imminently. “The lines have been dealing with significantly higher fuel prices for about three weeks now, and there isn’t much high conviction clarity in terms of potential de-escalation, and thus lower fuel prices,” says Woronka. “So we would not be surprised to see the spike in fuel prices get passed along to the consumer within a few weeks.”

Lines could also embed the higher cost of fuel into future fares by simply raising the ticket prices overall, Woronka says. It’s potentially a more likely scenario, especially because travelers don’t like the idea of surcharge, and they expect it to be removed when oil prices come down. “If the lines don’t use that term, but just raise prices, they don’t necessarily have to lower those prices when the cost of fuel retreats,” he explains.

Whether through fuel surcharges or higher overall fares, cruise companies are likely confident that they can pass on the elevated costs to travelers without risking canceled bookings due to this year’s strong demand for cruises, Woronka says.

Cruise companies have reported historic bookings this year, with some voyages booked up through 2026.

Unsplash

Carriers are also required to carry out their own risk assessments and implement safety measures. Put simply, Bakr says: “If an airline didn’t believe a route was safe, it simply wouldn’t operate it. Safety and security come first, before convenience, and before cost and scheduling disruption.”

Beyond protocols and risk assessments, in times of conflict, air defense systems bring additional layers of security for travelers. The UAE is able to call upon some of the world’s most advanced, including Thaad and Patriot missile defense systems. As an air-worrier, it’s not something I wish to think about on the runway, but as Bakr explains, all these systems are working together to scan the skies for threats—from runway level to high altitude.

“Investment in multi-layered air defense systems is one of the key drivers behind the UAE’s decision-making to keep its airspace open to a certain level and a certain degree,” he says.

Former commercial airline pilot Marco Chan, a senior lecturer in aviation security at the UK’s Buckinghamshire New University, agrees that anyone with travel plans should feel reassured about flying in the Middle East right now. “It’s not simply because I used to fly planes,” he tells me, “but as a consumer, as a passenger, I have complete confidence in the industry because I know how risk-averse we are. If there’s a shred of uncertainty, they will cancel the flight.”

It’s also comforting to know that Gulf carriers like Emirates and Etihad Airways fly the latest aircraft, especially on international flights. If a plane does need to reroute mid-air, the technology and range of today’s long-haul jets allow for greater flexibility. “Today’s long-haul jets can fly much farther than the typical route they’re assigned,” Chan explains, “which means airlines have the option to reroute flights around areas of concern, if needed. That might involve taking a longer route or carrying additional fuel, so it’s not always the most economical option, but it’s very safe.”

Beyond fuel range, Chan adds that “flights are supported by sophisticated planning systems and ongoing ground monitoring. Airlines track airspace restrictions, weather, and geopolitical developments in real time, and routes can be adjusted even after departure.”

“Pilots are also trained to make decisions in flight, whether that’s avoiding a specific area or diverting if required,” he continues. “So, from a passenger’s perspective, flights aren’t locked into a fixed path. The system includes built-in flexibility to adapt to changing conditions, with safety as the overriding priority.”

While I personally have no plans to fly in the immediate future, Condé Nast Traveller Middle East’s social media editor, Jessica Blanchard, flew home to Dubai International Airport from Sydney with Emirates last week. Was she worried, I asked?

“I’m normally an anxious flier, but I had full confidence that UAE airspace would only reopen if it was safe. The check-in process at Sydney Airport felt completely normal. However, when we got closer to the gate, I noticed there weren’t many people boarding. The flight itself felt very empty.”

Collette: In its travel alert posted on March 3, Collette suspended several of its itineraries in the Middle East. “As we continue to monitor the conflict in the Middle East, we have made the decision to cancel the following programs for travel through June 2026: Treasures of Egypt, Egypt & Jordan, Cape Town to Cairo, Jordan Extension on all tour series, Dubai Extension on all tour series,” the alert says, “We will continue to monitor the situation, communicating any further updates as needed.”

What is the US government advising?

The US Department of State website has placed travel to Egypt at a Level 2 advisory, urging travelers to “exercise increased caution” in the country with certain areas designated as Level 4, meaning do not travel under any circumstances. High-risk areas deemed to be level four include the Northern and Middle Sinai Peninsula due to terrorism, the Western Desert due to risk to safety and security unless traveling with a professionally licensed tour company, and the Egyptian border areas due to military zones.

The advisory lists several potential target sites, including: Religious sites (mosques, churches, monasteries, and buses traveling there); local government buildings; diplomatic facilities (embassies); tourist sites; transportation centers; shopping malls; restaurants and foreign businesses; resorts; roadside checkpoints; and urban areas in Cairo.

Travelers have been cautioned against participating in demonstrations in Egypt as individuals simply in the vicinity of political protests have been apprehended, US citizens have been arrested for their participation in protests, and local law prohibits protesting and demonstrating without permit.

The advisory has also noted the US government’s limited capacity to aid US-Egyptian citizens who are arrested or detained and that dual citizens are considered solely Egyptian citizens under Egyptian law.

Americans in the Middle East are being advised to follow the guidance in the latest security alerts issued by the nearest US embassy or consulate.

What are foreign governments advising?

United Kingdom: The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office advises against travel to parts of Egypt including the Egypt-Libya border, North Sinai, the northern part of South Sinai, the eastern part of Ismailiyah Governorate, Hala’ib Triangle and Bir Tawil Trapezoid, and the Western Desert except for certain regions such as Luxor, Qina, Aswan, Abu Simbel, and the Valley of the Kings.

Australia: On the whole, the Australian government advises travelers exercise a high degree of caution when traveling to Egypt with warnings to reconsider travel to the South Sinai Governorate except for the southern coastal area of Sharm el Sheikh, the Ismailiyah Governorate east of the Suez Canal, areas of the West of the Nile Valley and Nile Delta regions, and the Haila’ib Triangle and within 20 kilometers of the southern border with Sudan. There is a “do not travel” advisory for the Governorate of North Sinai, including the Taba-Suez Road, or within 40 kilometers of Egypt’s border with Libya due to the high threat of terrorist attack and serious crime, including kidnapping and the Bir Tawil Trapezoid.

Canada: The Canadian government currently advises travelers to exercise a high degree of caution when traveling to Egypt with additional region-specific advisories. The advisory notes to avoid all non-essential travel to the northern part of the Governorate of South Sinai and to avoid all travel to the Western desert and Libyan border area as well as Northern Sinai.

How does this affect travel insurance?

Most standard travel insurance policies rely on government-issued “do not travel” advisories to trigger cancellations or claims. Current warnings and advisories from governments may affect travel insurance if they are not adhered to. Travelers are urged to keep up to date with their government’s latest advice before traveling. If your trip is impacted, see our full guide to what travel insurance covers during airspace closures.

This is a developing news story and will be updated with more information.