Open the airplane-tracking website Flightradar24 right now and the change is unmistakable. Where one of the world’s busiest aviation crossroads should be — a dense web of aircraft linking Europe, Asia and Africa — there is instead a yawning gap. A hole in the sky.
As conflict escalates in Iran with knock-on effects across the Middle East, vast swaths of regional airspace have closed or emptied. And because this region sits at the center of modern long-haul travel, the disruption is rippling far beyond it.
For decades, Europe-to-Asia traffic has flowed straight through the Middle East. The region is home to some of aviation’s most powerful megahubs — Dubai International Airport, Hamad…