How geopolitical tensions are changing the map of commercial airline routes -. Le Monde. Swarms of drones fly daily over the skies of Russia and Ukraine; the airport in Riyadh has been closed since October 10 and is struggling to reopen after a series of deadly attacks on the terminal; the airspace over Iran is closed to flights - either way, entire regions of the planet are inaccessible or partially closed. In 2026, war invades global airspace like never before. Welcome to the world of air transport, where geopolitics increasingly dictate the rules - a situation not seen since the Cold War. During the Iron Curtain era (1946-1989), the risk to civil aviation peaked in 1983, when a Soviet fighter jet shot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 that accidentally entered Soviet airspace. There were 269 passengers on board. Since the 1990s, the world's skies have seemingly opened forever: liberalization, increased routes and the rise of Gulf airlines. However, over the past 15 years, this trend seems to have reversed or at least stopped. The return of the conflict to the airspace is evident for the first time in the flight paths of the planes and in the increasing complexity of the flight plans. However, in a broader sense, since the 2010s there has been a structural change in the air routes, driven by two factors. An economic dimension was added to the geopolitical challenges that led to the emergence of new leaders in commercial aviation from the Middle East to the Far East. This "slow revolution" led to a change in the center of gravity of global flights from the West to Asia. The first major turning point was the downing of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in 2014 by an anti-aircraft missile fired by pro-Russian separatists.

How geopolitical tensions are changing the map of commercial airline routes -. Le Monde. Swarms of drones fly daily over the skies of Russia and Ukraine; the airport in Riyadh has been closed since October 10 and is struggling to reopen after a series of deadly attacks on the terminal; the airspace over Iran is closed to flights - either way, entire regions of the planet are inaccessible or partially closed. In 2026, war invades global airspace like never before. Welcome to the world of air transport, where geopolitics increasingly dictate the rules - a situation not seen since the Cold War. During the Iron Curtain era (1946-1989), the risk to civil aviation peaked in 1983, when a Soviet fighter jet shot down a Korean Air Lines Boeing 747 that accidentally entered Soviet airspace. There were 269 passengers on board. Since the 1990s, the world's skies have seemingly opened forever: liberalization, increased routes and the rise of Gulf airlines. However, over the past 15 years, this trend seems to have reversed or at least stopped. The return of the conflict to the airspace is evident for the first time in the flight paths of the planes and in the increasing complexity of the flight plans. However, in a broader sense, since the 2010s there has been a structural change in the air routes, driven by two factors. An economic dimension was added to the geopolitical challenges that led to the emergence of new leaders in commercial aviation from the Middle East to the Far East. This "slow revolution" led to a change in the center of gravity of global flights from the West to Asia. The first major turning point was the downing of a Malaysia Airlines Boeing 777 in 2014 by an anti-aircraft missile fired by pro-Russian separatists.