MOSCOW, July 28 (RIA Novosti) – Emirates is to stop flying over Iraq due to instability posed by the country’s militants and in light of the recent Malaysia Airlines plane crash in Ukraine, The Times quoted Emirates CEO Tim Clark as saying.
“The horrors that this created was a kick in the solar plexus for all of us. Nevertheless, having got through it we must take stock and deal with it,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.
One of the largest airlines in the world will reroute its planes along other flight paths to avoid being hit by surface-to-air missiles.
“We can’t do it all at once because we have got an awful lot going through it, but yes we will be doing that,” he said, according to The Telegraph.
New routes are to take planes to Europe via Saudi Arabia, the Red Sea and Egypt or over Iran.
According to the newspaper, Clark’s decision came after the news of the United States investigating whether Islamist militants in Iraq had acquired weapons from Syria that can shoot down aircraft flying at 30,000 feet of higher.
Emirates has the biggest number of flights that pass over ISIS-held territory in Iraq.
Last week, some airlines canceled their flights to Israel due to the ongoing military confrontation between the Israeli and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
