Stranded travellers charter private jets to return to Europe
War in the Middle East has prevented tens of thousands of people in Asia from getting home
European passengers stuck in Asia two weeks after the Iran war threw global air travel into chaos have resorted to chartering private jets or paying significantly higher prices to get home.
Others are taking circuitous routes via America to return to Europe after Gulf transfer flights that dominate the route all but ceased and left tens of thousands of passengers stranded, according to travel and industry executives.
“You are seeing odd routings, with people going back via the Pacific, going through the US, but that’s a very long way round,” said John Strickland, an aviation consultant.
Airlines offering direct services have raised prices in the face of a “drastic” increase in demand. This week, Cathay Pacific was selling business-class seats from Sydney to London – stopping in Hong Kong – at £20,000 each.
“Currently it’s very dynamic, it’s changing all the time so we will charge according to supply and demand in the market,” said Cathay Pacific CEO Ronald Lam.
Cathay’s flights between Hong Kong and Europe “were pretty full even before the conflict so the room to take on more bookings is quite limited really”, Lam added.
A third of the flights between Europe and Asia pass through the Gulf, as do about half of those to Australasia, according to data group Cirium.
But airports across the Gulf have either shut or had operations significantly curtailed while airspace in the region has been closed owing to missile and drone attacks.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi are operating limited services but Qatar remains closed apart from repatriation flights. Almost no transfer passengers are using the region.
Cirium estimated that more than 4mn passengers worldwide had been hit by disruption after a huge number of flights globally were cancelled.
While many travellers were in the Gulf, tens of thousands who had expected to travel through the region were left stranded in Asia. A shortage of flights meant they have had to find other ways home, including hiring jets, said travel and aviation executives.
Private jet operators — who were swamped with bookings with people leaving the Gulf last week — have reported a rise in bookings for passengers returning from Asia.
Global Charter, a private jet booking service, recently rented two planes for passengers in the Maldives who had been due to fly commercially through the Gulf. One flight travelled to Copenhagen with a stop in Baku in Azerbaijan to refuel while the other went directly to London, said co-founder Dan Hurley.
Chartering a plane can cost anything from high tens of thousands of pounds into the hundreds of thousands of pounds, depending on the size of the aircraft and distance.
Commercial airlines including Malaysian, Cathay and Air India have already put on additional flights connecting Europe and Asia. But the loss of Gulf airports has strained a global air system that was already running near capacity because of a shortage of aircraft — leading to steep price increases.
“There are hardly any flights,” said a travel agent who has been trying to help clients travel to Australia.
“The airlines generally can’t simply snap their fingers and bring capacity from Chicago or London to Tokyo or Sydney on demand,” said Mike Arnot, an airline industry commentator.
Prices for a one-way ticket from Australia to London in economy are £3,000 for flights through Malaysia and Istanbul, £8,000 to travel through Taipei and then over Russian airspace on a Chinese airline, and £9,000 to fly east through Vancouver and Toronto on a series of Air Canada flights.
Flights through the Gulf would previously cost less than £1,000.