When Qatar announced a sudden closure of its airspace Monday evening, shortly before Iran launched a volley of missiles at the US military base—Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar—over 90 Qatar Airways flights with more than 20,000 passengers were on their way to its hub Doha, and had to be diverted to airports in various countries, including 15 to India, the airline’s chief executive Badr Mohammed Al Meer said in a letter to passengers, detailing how the global airline managed the crisis over the next two days.
He described the crisis as “an operational crisis few airlines will ever encounter, and one that “challenged the very core of what it means to run a global airline”.
The airspace closure snowballed into a major international disruption, given Qatar Airways’ extensive network and Doha being a mega hub airport, where thousands of passengers transit daily. Iran’s missile attack—in retaliation of American airstrikes at its nuclear facilities—led to other West Asian countries including the UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait also shutting down their airspaces for a few hours, which deepened the disruption further.
“At the time (of the airspace closure), over 90 Qatar Airways flights carrying more than 20,000 passengers to Doha, were forced to divert immediately. 25 flights diverted into airports across Saudi Arabia, 18 into Turkey, 15 into India, 13 into Oman, and 5 into the United Arab Emirates. The remaining aircraft were re-routed to major hubs including London, Barcelona, and others across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East,” wrote Al Meer, terming the Qatari airspace closure as “unexpected and unprecedented”.
“At around 18:00 local time on Monday, 23 June, an unexpected and unprecedented closure of Qatari airspace forced Qatar Airways to suspend global operations with immediate effect. Shortly after, airspace was also closed in Bahrain, the UAE, and Kuwait. Hamad International Airport (Doha), one of the world’s busiest and most connected global hubs, was brought to a standstill, with almost 100 aircraft en route to Doha, several already on approach to our runways, and others lining up for departure,” he said.
Scale of the disruption
With all departures from Doha suspended until past midnight (Qatar time), the airline’s “routine, seamlessly synchronised global operation” was instantly scattered into dozens and dozens of disrupted flight scenarios across continents, “each with their own complexities and requirements”.
According to Al Meer, over 10,000 passengers were already in transit at the Doha airport when the disruption began, finding themselves caught in the middle of “one of the most severe and complex operational challenges in modern aviation history”.
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“Around the world, some of our flight crews had timed out of legal operating hours. Most of our fleet, including A380s carrying more than 450 passengers each, were now out of position, some grounded at airports with curfews. Several flights had to wait for clearance to re-enter restricted regional airspace. Aircraft routing plans were rewritten in parallel with passenger itineraries. Over 151 flights were immediately disrupted. Every part of the operation had to adapt in real time — without precedent, and without pause,” Al Meer wrote in the letter.
He added that the priority for Qatar Airways was clear—to care for passengers impacted by the unprecedented situation, and to restore its global operations “as safely and swiftly as possible”.
Crisis mitigation efforts in Doha
Once the Qatari airspace reopened shortly after midnight on Tuesday, the diverted aircraft began returning to Doha over the course of several hours. As a result, the number of passengers in transit at the Doha airport ballooned to over 22,000 by 5 am (Qatar time).
“As an airline, our business continuity plans were activated, and our teams coordinated on hard resource planning, catering, ground transport, hotel accommodation, and real-time alignment with passenger movements, immigration, customs, and every airport stakeholder. Over 4,600 customers were provided hotel accommodation, using approximately 3,200 rooms across Doha. Many of these passengers received onward boarding passes for their rescheduled flights before even leaving the terminal—allowing for a smoother re-entry once our operations resumed,” the Qatar Airways CEO said.
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Meanwhile at the Doha airport, Qatar Airways group teams got busy rebooking journeys, and even manually rebuilding complex travel itineraries—some involving other airlines, and even expired visas. The airline also decided to increase capacity to destinations with “high volumes of displaced passengers”.
“Contact centre resources were scaled up to cope with global demand. We quickly established a flexible travel policy, allowing passengers who had not yet started their journeys to make changes or refund their bookings without fees. Across our global stations, ground handlers and partners moved quickly, supported by live coordination between our airport and airline operations control centres,” Al Meer said.
Resumption of normal flight operations
On Tuesday, Qatar Airways operated a total of 390 flights as it worked to restore the integrity of its flight schedule. Around 20,000 passengers from its disrupted flights were cleared within 24 hours, with more than 11,000 resuming their journeys on the morning of June 24, while the remainder departed through the evening that day and the morning of June 25. According to Al Meer, after that, there were no passengers from diverted flights that were still stranded.
“Within just 18 hours, our scheduled operations had resumed. Wave by wave, the system began to stabilise. By the end of Tuesday, more than 58,000 passengers had departed Doha—moved not by chance, but by a coordinated effort from across the Qatar Airways Group to fulfil our responsibility during this unprecedented disruption,” Al Meer said.
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The airline’s operations stabilised further on June 25 with the operation of 578 flights. According to data from Cirium, an aviation analytics company, Qatar Airways normally has between 523 and 547 daily flights, depending on the day of the week.
