Middle Eastern Airlines Are Facing an Impossible Choice Over Iran

It's hard enough to run a commercial airline at the best of times, but pity the predicament of chief executives in the Middle East right now. Turkish Airlines, its low-cost subsidiary AJet and the private carrier Pegasus halted all flights to and from Iran on September 21, severing one of the Islamic Republic's last reliable air links to the outside world. The booking systems on the websites of Turkish Airlines and AJet now show no Iranian departures before late March 2027. Pegasus went further, stripping Iranian cities from its reservation platform entirely, with no indicated resumption date. A Turkish Airlines representative, asked by Iran International whether service would return in the spring, said the carrier could offer no guarantee. None of these actions were a commercial choice; all are the result of the simmering conflict between the U.S. and Iran.