Iran's Airlines Just Got Shut Down Worldwide, Here's What That Actually Means for Your Flight Through the Gulf

• New US secondary sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector took effect 23 September 2026
• Iran cancelled its own flights to Baghdad and Muscat from midnight local time that day
• The US Treasury had already sanctioned 27 Iranian airlines and 9 service providers on 8 September 2026
• Gulf hub airports — Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi, Riyadh, Muscat — are operating normally
• Western Iranian airspace (the Tehran FIR) has been closed to international overflights since June 2026, and most international carriers already route around it

On 23 September 2026 the United States triggered sweeping new sanctions aimed at grounding every Iranian airline worldwide, and Iran responded within hours by cancelling its own flights to Baghdad and Muscat. If you have a flight booked through Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi or Istanbul this week, the short answer is that nothing about your routing has changed — those hubs, and the carriers that use them, have been flying around Iranian airspace since June and are unaffected by this week’s sanctions fight.

What did the US actually sanction, and when did it take effect?

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on 22 September that secondary sanctions on global aviation-service providers — fuel suppliers, ground handlers, ticket agents — would force every Iranian airline to stop flying from 23 September, telling CNBC “on September 23rd, all the Iranian airlines...will be shut down around the world.” It builds on action the Treasury already took on 8 September 2026, when it sanctioned 27 Iranian airlines and nine additional service providers and sales agents, and suspended three Iran-related aviation authorisations. The mechanism is indirect: rather than banning Iranian jets outright, Washington threatens to cut any foreign company that still services them out of the US financial system.

Which flights have actually been cancelled so far?

Only Iran’s own international routes, and only two of them: Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization cancelled flights to Baghdad and Muscat from midnight local time on 23 September, as regional airports began restricting Iranian carriers under the new US pressure. Iranian authorities are reportedly trying to divert Baghdad-bound traffic to Najaf instead, and negotiations with Oman are ongoing. Flights on Iranian carriers to Istanbul were reported to still be running on schedule. No Emirati, Qatari, Omani, Turkish, British, American or Australian carrier has cancelled a route over this week’s sanctions — the disruption sits entirely inside Iran’s own network.

Does this affect your flight through Dubai, Doha or Istanbul?

For almost everyone booked on a major international carrier, no. Gulf hubs in the UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Oman are described by aviation trackers as largely operational, and the airlines that route millions of American, British and Australian travellers through them each year — Emirates, Qatar Airways, Etihad, Turkish Airlines — have been flying wide detours around Iranian and Iraqi airspace since the escalation in June, months before this week’s sanctions news existed. That detour already added time to some Gulf-to-Asia and Gulf-to-Europe routings back then; nothing about it changes this week. You are only exposed if you are booked on an Iranian carrier itself, or on a route that transits Baghdad or Muscat specifically on an Iranian airline — a booking pattern that is rare for a US, UK or Australian passport holder.

What this means if you are flying to Nepal, or through this region

Most Everest and Annapurna trekkers reach Kathmandu through exactly the hubs named above — Doha on Qatar Airways, Dubai on Emirates or flydubai, or Istanbul on Turkish Airlines — and none of those routings run anywhere near Iranian airspace, even before this week. The real story here is diplomatic, not logistical: Iran has now threatened to retaliate against any neighbour that enforces the US sanctions, and that is the part worth watching over the next few days, not your boarding pass.

If your trek to Nepal routes through the Gulf this autumn, our Everest Base Camp trek departs on schedule regardless of this week’s aviation sanctions news. Message us on WhatsApp if you want a specific routing checked against the latest airspace notices before you fly.

Cover photo: Ravi Dwivedi via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). Section photos: Keegan Checks via Pexels (Pexels licence); Mark Stebnicki via Pexels (Pexels licence); K via Pexels (Pexels licence); Drinu Cutajar via Pexels (Pexels licence); Chris F via Pexels (Pexels licence).