Emirates will no longer fly its aircraft over Iraq due to concerns that Islamic militants could use a missile to bring down a passenger plane.
The move, announced by the Gulf carrier's president Tim Clark, follows the Malaysia Airlines disaster earlier this month. Flight MH17 travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur and carrying 298 people was shot down over Ukraine (see news, July 17).
Due to logistics, the change will come into place over the next week to ten days, Clark said.
Emirates is considering alternate routes such as across Saudi Arabia and the Red Sea, up over Cairo and into European airspace, adding up to 45 minutes to flight times.
Clark told The Times that he expects other airlines to follow Emirates' lead and suspend their own flights over Iraq.
He said: "The fact of the matter is MH17 changed everything, and that was very nearly in European airspace.
"We cannot continue to say, 'Well it's a political thing.' We have to do something. We have to take the bull by the horns...
"We can't do it all at once because we have got an awful lot going through it, but yes we will be [making the route changes].
"That is the kind of thing that will demonstrate to the public that we take this extremely seriously and that is exactly what we are doing."
Last week, Clark called for an international airline conference to discuss how best to respond to the Malaysia Airlines disaster (see news, July 21).
Graham Smith
