The War Made Flights to Dubai an Hour Longer. Here's How Long They Take Now

How long is the flight to Dubai now? For a while this year, the honest answer was "a lot longer than usual." When the war with Iran closed large stretches of Middle East airspace in late February, flights between Europe, the US and the Gulf had to detour around it. To measure how much that cost passengers, and whether it's over, Contrail tracked the same flights week by week, from October 2025 through last week, using FlightAware data.

I've flown 63 long-haul flights this year, and in the spring, I could feel the detours: flights that should have been routine suddenly had an extra hour on the moving map. I wanted to know whether that was just my luck or something bigger, so I went to the data.

The short version: the detours were big, they peaked in March and April, and on most routes they've now disappeared.

The Detours Were Real, and They Were Long

Emirates' flight from Dubai to London is a good example. A year ago, it typically spent about 7 hours and 15 minutes in the air. In mid-March, that jumped to about 8 hours and 23 minutes, more than an hour longer. The return flight from London grew by about 45 minutes.

Qatar Airways' London flights didn't just get longer; for a stretch, they didn't fly. Every Doha-London flight we tracked in mid-March was canceled. By April, when flights were back, the trip from Doha to London was taking about 52 minutes longer than the year before.

Flights between New York and the Gulf were hit the same way. Every Emirates flight between JFK and Dubai in our March sample was canceled, and by mid-April, the Dubai to New York flight was taking about 72 minutes longer than a year earlier. Longer flights also burn more fuel, which is one reason jet fuel costs have weighed so heavily on airlines this year.

Then the Detours Went Away

By June, most of those extra minutes were gone. Emirates' Dubai to London flight was back to about 7 hours and 6 minutes in June, and last week it averaged about 7 hours and 12 minutes, right in line with a year ago. Qatar's London flights were within a few minutes of normal. And last week, Emirates' London to Dubai flight was averaging about 6 hours and 20 minutes, its quickest of any period we checked.

That's worth knowing if you're planning a trip through Dubai or Doha this winter. Even with the ongoing attacks on Riyadh's airport and other targets in Saudi Arabia, flight times on the main Gulf routes are essentially back to normal.

Europe to Asia Barely Changed

The surprise in the data is how little the war affected flights that don't stop in the Gulf. Singapore Airlines' London to Singapore flight took 12 hours and 18 minutes in the air a year ago, 12 hours and 14 minutes in March and 12 hours and 22 minutes last week. Air France's Paris to Singapore flight, British Airways' London to Singapore flight and Thai Airways' London to Bangkok flight all moved by 15 minutes or less at the height of the crisis. Qantas' nonstop London to Perth flight, one of the longest in the world, gained just 17 minutes in March.

Flights between Europe and India sat in between. British Airways' London to Mumbai flight ran about 17 minutes longer in March before returning to normal.

One Route to Watch

There's one exception in our data. Lufthansa's flight from Frankfurt to Delhi, which was back to normal by summer, took about 28 minutes longer last week than it did a year ago. One week isn't enough to call it a trend, but if you're flying between Europe and India this winter, it's a sign that routes in the region are still shifting.

What It Means for You

• If you're flying to Dubai or Doha, expect a normal flight time on the major routes we checked, but keep an eye on news from the region, since things changed fast this spring.
• If the region flares up again, check for cancellations first. At the worst of the crisis, many of the Gulf flights we tracked were canceled outright rather than flown on long detours.
• On a long-haul flight, extra time in the air matters, so it's worth checking which plane you're on and picking a seat you'll be comfortable in for an extra hour.

How we did this: Contrail used FlightAware data to compare the median time in the air for the same flights in seven-day windows across seven periods, from October 2025 to October 2026. Flight times also change with seasonal winds, so we compared each route against itself rather than against other routes.