Several major airlines said on Wednesday they were re-routing flights to avoid airspace over Iraq and Iran after the Federal Aviation Administration banned U.S. carriers from the area following an Iranian missile attack on U.S.-led forces in Iraq.
Tehran fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles from Iranian territory against at least two Iraqi military bases hosting U.S.-led coalition personnel, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
The FAA said it issued the airspace ban, which also includes the Gulf of Oman and the waters between Iran and Saudi Arabia, "due to heightened military activities and increased political tensions in the Middle East, which present an inadvertent risk to U.S. civil aviation operations."