6/25/25 UPDATE: American Airlines and United Airlines have extended their suspension of service to the Middle East.
American Airlines has extended its pause in service between Philadelphia (PHL) and Doha (DOH) until June 20, 2025:
- AA120 PHL-DOH: Flights canceled June 18 through June 30
- AA121 DOH-PHL: Flights canceled June 20 through July 3
United Airlines has extended its pause in service between Newark (EWR) and Dubai (DXB) until July 3, 2025:
- UA164 EWR-DXB: Flights canceled June 18 through July 2
- UA163 DXB-EWR: Flights canceled June 20 through July 5
United’s service to Tel Aviv (TLV) remains suspended through August 1, 2025.
The original story from June 19, 2025 is below.
As war between Iran and Israel enters its seventh day and the U.S. considers involvement, American Airlines and United Airlines have paused their flights to the Middle East beyond Israel.
American Airlines Suspends Doha Service, United Airlines Suspends Dubai Service
Both American and United (Delta Air Lines does not currently fly to the Middle East beyond Tel Aviv) are pausing all service to the Middle East.
American Airlines Pauses Doha Service
American Airlines has suspended service between Philadelphia and Doha after the Doha – Philadelphia flight took off this morning:
- AA120 PHL-DOH
- June 17: Flight departed and landed in DOH
- June 18-22: Flights have been cancelled
- AA121 DOH-PHL
- June 19: Flight departed and landed in PHL
- June 20-24: Flights have been cancelled
American says:
American Airlines has made adjustments to its Doha, Qatar (DOH) operation, temporarily suspending flights between DOH and Philadelphia (PHL) until Sunday, June 22. We will continue to monitor the situation with safety and security top of mind and make any additional adjustments as needed.
American Airlines has suspended Tel Aviv service since Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
United Airlines Pauses Dubai Service
Meanwhile, United Airlines has suspended service between Newark and Dubai after the Dubai – Newark flight took off this morning:
- UA164 EWR-DXB
- June 17: Flight departed and landed in DXB
- June 18-22: Flights have been cancelled
- UA163 DXB-EWR
- June 19: Flight departed and landed in EWR
- June 20-24: Flights have been cancelled
United says:
Due to ongoing conflict in the region, we are pausing service between EWR and DXB (Dubai) starting June 18. Flights to DXB will be cancelled through June 22.
United suspended to Amman, Jordan (AMM) in August 2024 and currently has no plans to resume service.
> Read More: United Airlines Suspends Amman Service Through End Of Schedule
CONCLUSION
With a Middle East war now in full swing between regional powers, American and United have taken the precautionary move of suspending service to Doha and Dubai (respectively). Although the service is currently only suspended until June 22, 2025, I would expect that the pause in service will continue for several weeks, if not longer.
Smart decision for the airline, its shareholders (any still left) and public relations. Any incident would be devastating based on the current situation.
The lawyers would be lining up to put the airline out of business for allowing the flights.
Also F Palestine and Iran!
F israel!
Is there actually any real risk here, or is this just a case of the flight attendants being scared to fly? Surely the likelihood of a western aircraft flying to DXB or DOH being targeted is zero.
Agreed. I think while there is tertiary risk, this is more about quieting unions before they object.
I would also assume that demand has plummeted amid the uncertainty. Ultra longhaul flying has challenging economics when demand is high. It wouldn’t take much to make those flights into big financial losers.
@Dave
Last I checked, Israel is the only state of the two with the nuclear weapons, and the one that launched an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran, no?
Are you really an American? Or an Israeli? Hmm…
Also the Nation that hasn’t used them against an enemy that doesn’t believe they have a right to exist. Not sure who the 20% are that are with you in not being concerned with Iran getting nukes.
Probably Omar supporters and other potential terrorists that hate Jews like much of the left in America. Keep s#cking that camel c#ck buddy and calling conservatives “racists and nazis” while we support the Jewish people.
Learn history buddy, this was a retaliatory attack and not unprovoked or preventative.
Retaliating to what?
45 years of terror across the world. It’s time to cut the head of the snake.
Nah, this was just Bibi going for another forever war to stay out of jail.
@Jerry
See MH17, why don’t you go tell the 298 passengers whose bodies disintegrated on impact that they’re being snowflakes?
Thanks for the accusation, Ed. I don’t think the passengers who perished on MH17 are being snowflakes. The 2014 conflict in Donbas was a ground war being fought by conscripts who likely had no geopolitical understanding of their actions. The current conflict between Israel and Iran is being carried out by professionals making targeted attacks on each other, over 1,000km away. The last thing either of these countries wants to do is piss off Qatar or the UAE. Israel isn’t going to shoot down a US-flagged commercial aircraft, and Iran is very aware of what might happen if they tried.
Iran is getting desperate, meaning harder and harder to predict. They badly need a way to deter Trump for attacking, and having American planes within AA missile range is one way to achieve this.
Then they can say it’s just another honest mistake, they were shooting at Israeli planes, and this actually was an Israeli plane with Netanyahu on board.
I mean, Iran was negotiating with the US when Israel attacked them…the only who looks desperate here is Israel trying to drag the US into fighting it’s war witj Iran for them.
ASF, that’s exactly what you are.
Aw, you still care. Thats so sweet. CAF. But still sweet.
Shut up, Uri.
I will go out on a limb to say that this is not by coincidence and was coordinated in tandem for the exact same days for a reason. As well, the choice of the next four days is rather random. I am betting that the CEO’s or security departments were given a heads up that something is happening regarding U.S. involvement, likely on Saturday. Either that or a credible threat was intercepted regarding those two flights over the weekend.
something the US and Iran have in common, both have shot down passenger jets in the middle east, maybe israel is getting jealous and wants to join this prestigious club.
Israel did sink an Americam navy ship, so they do have tbat going for tbem.
Meanwhile Delta Airlines adds twice daily flights to Tehran out of Atlanta
LOL ! They would actually be in demand tho.
Yeah, but it’s a 767. I think I’d rather connect in FRA and take LH.
Hmmm. VP Trump claimed that he would bring peace. That’s worked well. #twoweektaco
regardless of the success or not of the US and Israeli military actions, the Middle East and even India is a high risk and relatively low return place to deploy aircraft compared to more stable parts of the world.
When you factor in the loss of use of those aircraft for several weeks, the cost to serve those parts of the world will be high.
and given that all are fairly high ASM uses of aircraft, pulling those flights down even for a couple weeks further deteriorates AA and UA’s size including from NYC.
I’m curious what you mean by India being “high risk, low return.” I’m sure you can look the numbers up, but the daily traffic between the US and India is HUGE! Are you saying it doesn’t make sense for UA and AA to run a single flight to Middle East connecting hubs, and that it would be better to let EK and QR handle all of the long haul flying? My understanding is that PHL-DOH has been performing great. Surely nearly every person on that flight every day is heading to India, Pakistan, or Bangladesh.
I am saying that margins for India flights are significantly reduced because of the Russian airspace restrictions and the longer flight times.
I doubt that a flight that is full of non-JV passengers (neither AA or UA have JVs with their Middle East partners) with tons of connections to S. Asia is high profit or high margin.
Add in that AA and UA are flying to India and the Middle East from NYC which is highly competitive and the fares are not going to be great.
DL might break that cycle by flying from ATL-DEL – if they announce it actually happening and if they sign a JV w/ Riyadh Air – but the Middle East and S. Asia are not currently very profitable for US airlines.
E. Asia is far more profitable.
And the point is that the on and off cycle of cancellations take airplanes out of service that could be used elsewhere.