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Map Says Yes, Politics Say No: How Geopolitics Hijacked Your Holiday Plans

Welcome onboard! You're flying Flight Number 2025. We’ll be cruising at 41,000 feet, navigating through plenty of global conflicts, cautiously sidestepping airspace bans, avoiding military drones, dodging diplomacy, and graciously praying that on today’s briefing, our flight map will not appear far much similar to that of a war game.

Remember the time when aviation meant connection? Yea, that time... Shucks! When routes were drawn in graceful arcs between beautiful cultures and magnificent continents?

Uh-huh...

Well you need to wake up!

It’s currently a maze out there of closed corridors and spontaneous political detours. Every conflict on the ground seems to punch a direct vertical or horizontal hole in the sky. A missile strike in Ukraine means rerouting over who knows where. Scandinavia maybe? A drone attack in the Red Sea adds hours to a normally shorter Gulf-bound flight. Additionally, somewhere across the globe, flight crews are getting called in early to combat passengers' miss connections. Think about the repercussions that has on the price of fuel!

No... Scratch that! Another air traffic controller may be having a mental breakdown, quietly crying in the break room.

Take the Middle East for one. A flight to Tel Aviv presently isn’t just about weather patterns, but about navigating geopolitical minefields. Yemen? No words. Syria? Ukraine? Iran? Numbers seem to be going up lately. And, while airlines market these changes as “operational adjustments,” what they really mean is: please don’t ask how close that detour was to a restricted zone because I kid you not. We are trying our best.

Meanwhile, aircraft leasing has turned into its own international 'todo sobre' soap opera. After the Russia sanctions hit, Moscow shrugged and kept hundreds of Western jets like a kid refusing to return borrowed toys. That one move spooked the entire aircraft leasing industry. Contracts got tighter, premiums skyrocketed, and everyone begun asking difficult questions such as, “What if this happens to my holiday destination? Should I really leave my family behind? What if I get stuck? How long is this going to take?”

Lest we forget, it isn't just the machinery that’s only under pressure. Think of those flying the machines. Pilots, the crew, check-in staff, other technical personnel that you meet along your journey and those behind the scenes. Literally anyone who had to smile while navigating unstable skies are feeling it too. Flying over conflict-adjacent zones only adds a new flavour of tension and trauma.

Not quite calm now aren't we?

This is a mental toll that rarely makes the usual headlines. Briefings have now suddenly included crisis contingencies. Not forgetting the quiet glances during approach into high-risk airports. Lets face it. Some pilots and cabin crew are intentionally delaying calls to family and friends because they don’t want to say where they just flew. Airlines might mention resilience in their press releases, but hardly speak about crew fatigue dressed up as impeccable professionalism.

Now it’s practically a no-go zone if you’re from a Western airline. Why you ask? The Arctic; a region once praised as the future of shortcuts for transpolar routes. However due to the airspace stand-off with Russia, lets just say... Nah! Instead, lets continue burning more and more fuel, taxing more and more money.

And while we are at it, how about we pretend that the longest way around is equally just as great.

Now, bring the attention back to the most important places you'd pass by before going on that holiday you've planned for for months or even years. Airports.

Even those places aren’t what they used to be anymore. Consider them geopolitical stages. While some are symbols of national pride, others signify national trauma. While one is shut down by drones, another inadvertently become military bases. Just-Like-That. Hence, security searching lines and surveillance become longer and tighter. Think of the impact this has on freedom of movement.

Less-Less-A little less free.

Even so, aviation, just like humans have this resilience to adapt to any situation because there will always be a need to travel, and pilots will always fly. Cabin crew will always be there. Why? Because, airports eventually end up reopening. But, is it really adapting or absorbing to the current stakes? And what are we really absorbing? Geopolitics, risk, trauma, stress... Normalcy at cruising altitudes with a broadened smile and a blinking seatbelt sign to warn you to take your seat, because we are passing an area of the proverbial turbulence.

Therefore, the next time your flight is delayed, or rerouted, or even canceled without warning, don’t just assume it was probably a lack of available crew or a technical glitch. It may very well have been a decision from above.

Government maybe? Who knows? Its no longer just turbulence. It’s the new normal. And no, there’s no safety card for that.

So, read and update yourself before you make any travel plans.

Till next time...

Source: Map Says Yes, Politics Say No: How Geopolitics Hijacked Your Holiday Plans

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