Major airports in the Gulf are facing a wave of disruption that is beginning to ripple across global aviation networks.
According to a new report from Morningstar DBRS, intermittent airspace closures linked to regional tensions have affected operations at Dubai International Airport (DXB), Doha Hamad International Airport (DOH) and Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport (AUH) — three of the world’s most critical intercontinental transit hubs.
Together, the three airports handled roughly 2% of global passenger traffic in 2025. Dubai alone processed more than 90 million travellers, while Doha and Abu Dhabi handled around 55 million and 29 million passengers respectively. A particularly large share of this traffic consists of connecting passengers, representing more than 70% of travellers at Doha and around 45% at Dubai.
The operational interruptions are now forcing airlines to reassess routing strategies across long-haul networks linking Europe, Asia and Africa.
Some European airports are positioned to temporarily absorb part of the displaced traffic. Istanbul Airport (IST) and Frankfurt Airport (FRA) are viewed as the most capable alternatives thanks to their extensive long-haul networks and operational flexibility.
However, other major European hubs face more severe structural limits. London Heathrow (LHR), Paris Charles de Gaulle (CDG) and Amsterdam Schiphol (AMS) are already constrained by tight slot availability and infrastructure limitations, making it difficult for them to accommodate significant additional traffic even if demand shifts in their direction.
Peripheral hubs such as Madrid-Barajas (MAD) could see modest adjustments in flight frequencies, but analysts believe the overall volumes they capture will remain relatively limited.
In the longer term, repeated disruptions in the Gulf could lead to fragmentation in the global air transport system. Analysts warn that instability in a region so heavily dependent on transfer passengers may drive higher operational costs for airlines and reduce the reliability of tightly coordinated connection banks.
History suggests that even temporary airspace disruptions can have lasting consequences. Events such as the 2010 European volcanic ash crisis, which closed large portions of European airspace, demonstrated how quickly global flight networks can be reshaped.
Even so, Gulf airports are unlikely to lose their strategic importance permanently. The scale of their infrastructure and their ability to handle large volumes of connecting passengers give them structural advantages that most European airports cannot easily replicate.
Morningstar DBRS notes that any lasting shift in global traffic patterns will ultimately depend on a complex combination of geopolitics, airport capacity and airline network flexibility.
