![[OC] Most flights connecting Europe to Asia now have to route through a tiny passage over Armenia and Azerbaijan](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/p36wwdkaltng1-1358x1536.png "[OC] Most flights connecting Europe to Asia now have to route through a tiny passage over Armenia and Azerbaijan")
Hi, author here. Made this map for a story my colleague wrote about how some airlines are now profiting from the closed airspace over Iran.
I used flight tracks data from FlightRadar24, visualized it using Datawrapper, downloaded the SVG, and made it look nicer in Figma.
Link to the story (in German): https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2026-03/lufthansa-europa-asien-nahostkrieg-flugverkehr
Posted by drivenbydata
43 Comments
Good to know that taliban doesn’t have an airforce
Ooh thanks, really interesting for me since my flight is departing tmw for Zürich
Famously war free area!
Did you find more trend north in the caucuses over georgia rather than Armenia given the recent history of issues there, or do they not seem to care that much?
How long until flights start going through Anchorage again?
If anyone wants to read the article I recommend scanning the QR code.
Azerbaijan be like
https://preview.redd.it/5b5lsq2hotng1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a9c815109932d10309d4eb3e2d392b5dafef5820
A lot more flights are taking the southern route over Saudi Arabia than this map shows
Is Russian airspace closed for all flights between other countries?
Many airlines are also using the Arctic route to reach Tokyo.
I flew Tokyo Narita to Frankfurt on Friday. We went over the top of North America and Greenland.
I wonder if cutting China off from over-land flight routes is part of a broader strategy.
I hate this timeline. 🙁
Seems like a recipe for disaster
And Armenia-Azerbaijan like each other so very much, this passage can only stay open until the end of times, so that’s good.
What ? What are you saying ? High-Karabagh ? Why is a witch smoking weed ?
Ah yes, Armenia and Azerbaijan, two countries that are famously very chill towards each other
I’m feeling this increased feeling of isolation in Australia, from all these cancelled and now expensive flights, and with the covid and post covid years so recent too.
How stable is the ARM-AZB ceasefire? I guess the airspace was closed a few years back
Air india is taking the saudi route because pakistan airspace is closed.
FYI Armenia and Azerbaijan are in conflict as well but no ongoing war.
Last week Azerbaijan wanted to close their air space due to issues with Iran.
BTW, Chinese and Indian air companies use Russian air space.
That will soon close too if Azerbaijan keeps on being a CIA/Mossad base.
How many rockets would it take to essentially stop air traffic between Asia and Europe?
[What could possibly go wrong?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagorno-Karabakh_conflict)
Imagine if Azerbaijan closes their airspace. All direct flights between Europe and East Asia would be severed.
Edit: Wait nevermind, they can fly over the Arctic.
Most Direct flights obviously. Why omitting that? There are many more flights indirectly over the gulf states.
Finnair laughs in Nordic. They fly over the north pole.
The map is missing a lot more red zones: israel, lebanon, syria, jordan, iraq, saudi arabia, sudan, libya, even parts of egypt that are too close to israel or libya
A lot of far east (japan, korea) are using arctic routes not to dissimilar to cold war era flights which used anchorage as a stop. Iys just that these days planes have the range to skip anchorage entirely with ETOPS ratings.
Actually interesting. That area being quite sensitive as well, this kind of gives Iran, Russia and various other groups an incentive to spark some kind of active conflict there too. This would annoy especially Europe and China, and would give them reason to distance themselves further from the US action in Iran.
On one hand there is literally a way around this, on the other hand it seems like a very low effort thing to cause additional headaches for western cooperation. I guess it comes down to how big the practical inconvenience would actually be.
hasnt emirates resumed flights already?
Fly china airline and you go straight over russia and super fast
KLM uses polar routes these days more frequently. Like the good old days when doing a quick stop in Alaska when flying Amsterdam – Tokyo.
Helsinki used to be a hub between Europe and East Asia. A big Airbus could fly from Helsinki to Tokyo and back in 24 hours…
So what happens when Putin intervenes in A&A again?
Yeah no thank you, that’s a little too close to comfort to thread the needle like that and hope no one accidentally shoots ur plane down
It’s a fight or flight response.
Not if you fly China airlines like China Southern. They fly over Russia. Much cheaper too.
That ‘tiny passage’ is called the [Republic of Georgia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)). It is an actual country with a name.
I mean looking at this map, only the flights from Mumbai and *maybe* Bangkok would have wanted to go over Iran in the first place, so most of this is the result of the Ukraine war.
I guess it’s all relative, but 100mile / 160KM wide path isn’t that tiny for an airplane
Not going to lie I had no idea how close Iran was to Ukraine
Well thank god they’re not fighting anymore
Azerbaijan could do something REALLY funny rn
next sunday i have a flight from milan to hong kong im praying everyday they dont close azerbaijan fly zone