The upcoming ICANN meeting is scheduled to be held in Mumbai, India from March 7 to March 12. However there are always a number of people who need to arrive several days in advance for various meetings. Over the past 48 hours the situation in the Middle East has changed quite dramatically and travel to and from India on some routes has been impacted.
ICANN has put out a holding statement. As of right now if you are planning on attending the meeting in Mumbai in person I’d recommend you to keep an eye on official notices from both the airlines and the airports. The gulf carriers are the most directly impacted, but most airlines that have flights to the region will have been impacted.
My nearest airport is Dublin which has flights with Qatar, Emirates and Etihad. All three have cancelled flights today:
The longer the disruption continues the more complicated it will become for schedules etc., to return to normal, as both airplanes and staff will be out of position.
Flights with airlines like KLM, BA and Lufthansa do not currently appear to be impacted, unless they are to destinations in the Middle East, though they could be if airspace becomes more restricted. As of right now the airspace in the region looks like this:
As you can see the space above Syria, Iraq, Kuwait, Iran, Israel and Jordan is pretty much empty.
It’s impossible to know right now how long the current situation will last. The airlines will let passengers know what’s happening as soon as they know themselves.
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