By Peiman Salehi | Source
On 8 September, the US Treasury sanctioned 36 targets connected to Iran’s aviation sector, including 27 Iranian airlines. It also withdrew authorizations that had allowed some aviation services and flights into Iran.
By late September, Iranian carriers faced restrictions in the UAE, Oman, Georgia, and Azerbaijan, while flights to Baghdad and then Najaf were halted. Turkmenistan withheld overflight permission for a Varesh Airlines service to Dushanbe, forcing it back to Tehran.
The sanctions make servicing Iranian aircraft a potential liability for fuel suppliers, ground-handling firms and ticket agents, and regional restrictions have followed.
The campaign assumes Iran will absorb the damage as its air links are cut. That overlooks the country’s place in the region’s aviation geography. Iran sits underneath and beside a large share of Persian Gulf air traffic – overland corridors to Central Asia and the Caucasus, airspace bordering some of the busiest Europe–Asia routes, and the waters and skies around the Strait of Hormuz, whose shipping routes are already at the center of the wider war.
A country in that position is difficult to isolate without neighboring states also facing risks. Iran has ways to apply pressure, even as its own passengers bear the immediate costs of lost flights. The suffering of passengers is central to the sanctions story, but the neighboring states whose airports and skies Iran has long used have their own vulnerabilities. Tehran cannot compel them to serve its airlines, but their decisions do not take place outside the war that has already disrupted regional aviation.
The war’s warning for regional aviation
Since the US-Israeli war on Iran began in February, regional airspace has become a shared casualty. EASA’s conflict-zone advisories extended well beyond Iranian skies – reaching Iraq, Lebanon, and, at various points, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE, and the western Gulf of Oman.
By late August, EASA had narrowed its Gulf warning while maintaining advisories for Iran and Iraq. Insurers and airlines also assess routes for themselves, and a technically open airport may still lose traffic when carriers judge the approach unsafe.
The precedent is relevant to this sanctions dispute as Iran does not need to retaliate against a specific airport to make Persian Gulf aviation more expensive and less reliable.
If flights toward Iran become unsafe or unpredictable, the same instability affects the airspace immediately around it – including hub airports, like Dubai’s, whose entire business model depends on being a reliable regional connector.
Governments enforcing US sanctions have reason to weigh that possibility, though the earlier safety warnings do not prove that the flight bans will trigger another regional shutdown. A hub airport can continue operating while airlines judge particular corridors too risky or too expensive.
The resulting delays and diversions reach connecting passengers who have no plans to enter Iran. That does not mean Tehran can shut neighboring airports at will; it does give those states reason to watch how an aviation dispute develops.