An aviation risk management and conflict zone overflight expert talks with Karen Walker about what airlines and airports must prioritize through the Iran war.
This episode was recorded March 5.
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Karen Walker: Hello everyone, and thank you for joining us for Window Seat, our Aviation Week air transport podcast. I'm ATW and Aviation Week air transport editor-in-chief Karen Walker. Welcome onboard. Of course, all eyes are now fixed on the Middle East, since the US and Israel began military strikes on Iran, which has retaliated. This is an air transport podcast, so we're not going to analyze the military operations of this war. My colleagues at Aviation Week and their Check 6 podcast are doing that, of course, so you can follow their coverage at aviationweek.com. Meanwhile, here at Window Seat and at our commercial air transport products, including ATW and CAPA, we're focused on the impact on the airlines and airports in the Gulf region and globally. And specifically, we're taking a forward look at the longer-term concerns and risks that airlines and airports will likely need to manage. So, I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by a special guest this week, Matt Borie, who is a co-founder and is the chief intelligence officer at Osprey Flight Solutions.
Matt, welcome and thank you so much for your time today. Matt is a risk management expert with 15 years' experience in aviation safety and security, specializing in conflict zone overflights. And in fact, just this week, he ran a webinar on the subject of what's happening in this Iran war relative to aviation. Before he took this career path as a consultant and at Osprey, Matt was an officer in the US Air Force. So Matt, thank you again. And again, as I say, assuming our audience is tracking the news on the strikes and damage so far of this war, which of course is still in its early stages, what has captured your attention in terms of the disruption and risks so far when it comes to airlines, airports, and commercial air travel? I mean, the obvious thing is that I think we're well above 20,000 flights have been canceled, but what are the key things that have struck you watching this from a commercial aviation perspective?
Matt Borie: Well, thank you for having me. And I think the biggest impact that you've highlighted is the disruption. So far, not only have thousands of flights been canceled, but you have airspace closed over a wide swath of the Middle East region, all the way from Israel to Kuwait and Bahrain have all closed their airspaces completely. Jordan has had airspace closures intermittently. The UAE has closed its airspace for the first several days of the conflict, but then gradually started resuming flights with restrictions, and Saudi Arabia has closed portions of its airspace, but the Saudi-Oman corridor has been critical to keeping flights going in and out of the region at present. Many of those who have been stranded in Qatar, Bahrain, and even the UAE have taken road transits into Oman and then flown out of Muscat to repatriate home. This has also affected flight crews that were stuck in locations in Qatar, Bahrain and the UAE. They needed to be moved into Oman and flown out.
Karen Walker: So yes, and this region and these airports in this region are of course very important for regional flights, but they're also critical for global air connection because a lot of these are global hubs that connect east and west. And that's also why so many flights have been canceled, and people are stranded all over the world because the flights can no longer go through there while the airspace is closed. How is Osprey monitoring the damage being done to airports?
Matt Borie: So Osprey is not your traditional security risk management consultancy. Yes, we have experts that have experience with analyzing satellite imagery due to their military background and training as intelligence analysts. However, what we do is we take an approach to utilize satellite imagery and different technologies to understand whether or not damages occurred at an airport. So, for example, we use space-based data to detect large heat signatures from space, which will identify if a fire, for example, is taking place at an airport. That gives us the indication that we need to then go further and look at the satellite imagery. So after we get the indication of a heat signature at an airport, we will then utilize actual high-resolution satellite imagery to identify the scope of the damage and to see if there's any critical functions at the airport that have potentially been disrupted due to that.
It is not uncommon in conflict zone areas like this where debris has flashed down inside of the perimeter of an airport. That doesn't necessarily mean that the airport is non-functional. What we're trying to identify specifically is: has there been any damage to aircraft runway and lighting? Is the firefighting and rescue services still intact? Obviously, any cratering on a runway, taxiway, or apron is important, and then damages to the maintenance facilities as well, along with the passenger terminals is evaluated. The other thing to keep in mind is that some of these airports in the region that have been targeted, like Kuwait City International Airport, for example, where we did extensive analysis, is co-located with a military base, which is why the airport was likely targeted in the first place. What we needed to do is evaluate the damage to identify: is this only on the civilian side? Did this affect the military side? And what are the implications for future operations in the response to that?
Karen Walker: Right. So we've really got two things going on here, obviously damage to airports that may or may not affect operations and mean that that can be used by the airlines or not. And then we've got the airspace, the airspace closures. Can you just talk a little to, particularly on the airspace side, what that again means to commercial airliners and what are the main risks there?
Matt Borie: So on the airspace side, we have closures, which essentially mean in certain areas you simply can't fly. So, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait—the issue is you have aircraft stuck on the ground that can't fly out because the airspace is closed. In locations like the UAE, they put an emergency plan in place for managing the airspace. So to avoid any type of civil-military deconfliction issues, what is happening when there is drone or missile activity identified, the airspace is being cleared. Aircraft are being sent to holding patterns in specific designated areas. And then in certain cases, after they've been in holding patterns for an extended period, they're being sent to diverts. Now, the UAE has published all this documentation so that airlines are aware of the requirements from a communications perspective, a flight planning perspective, as well as a diversion perspective. This is to minimize the potential for a catastrophic event from occurring.
It's carrying out coordination between the authorities, the military, and the civilian authorities from an aviation perspective, the military, and the airlines to ensure that flights can continue safely. While the Gulf states are experiencing this at an acute level right now, Saudi Arabia dealt with this type of situation from 2015 to 2022 during a previous conflict with the Yemeni Houthis, where they had to regularly close airports, close portions of their airspace, send aircraft to diversion points, or to put them in holding patterns on a regular basis. So they do have the experience and expertise to deal with this situation. It is not a new phenomenon, though it is a chaotic environment and it does require contingency plans.
Karen Walker: Right. That's very interesting. And this also sounds like it's very much about communications between... There's a lot of people and different aspects of who's involved here and getting that knowledge in time, things can change very quickly, can be critical. Am I correct with that assumption?
Matt Borie: Yes, because the distance here, I know the focus today is on the impact from the conflict on aviation, but you need to look at the conflict itself. Iran is not located very far from the United Arab Emirates where the airspace is open. Iran is not located very far from Saudi Arabia where the airspace is open. So when hazardous activity is possibly occurring, the authorities need to act swiftly to move aircraft to safe areas and passengers inside of terminals need to be kept safe as well. So if there is any type of risk to the airport, they need to be able to move people to safe areas in an orderly fashion and avoid the situation from becoming unruly. Because of that, you need to have emergency response plans that are not just in place and on the computer to check the boxes with, you need to actually carry them out.
And so most locations now have activated their emergency response plans and their business continuity plans. And part of this includes communications plans to make sure relevant stakeholders are informed of what their role is in the process when aircraft are diverting, when passengers need to be evacuated from a terminal or go into shelter in place, when aircraft that were about to take off are on the runway and need to be moved to a designated safe area on the ground at the airport. These are contingencies that can be prepared for. Now it's not just preparing for them, it's actually activating them. And so, communication is key, but it's not just communication with the aircraft on the ground. It's communication with passengers in the terminal. It's communication with aircraft that are being prepared to arrive and depart. And it's also key for the staff members at the airports and within the airlines to understand what their role is in this ecosystem.
Karen Walker: That makes a lot of sense. It's very complicated, but you mentioned a key thing there about the emergency response plan. That sounds to me like that's critical. That's something that should have ... everybody should have already had their emergency response plan. What's happening now is that they've activated it and are acting on it, yes?
Matt Borie: Exactly. That's exactly the point here. You don't want to have to use emergency response plans. Typically, emergency response plans are going to be used during aviation safety events, mechanical issues, diversions due to weather that could lead to a mishap, a runway excursion type event, etc. Unfortunately, this is a conflict zone type scenario, but the principle remains the same. It's a disruptive event that's occurred that's hazardous to aviation. In these cases, it's security-related more than safety-related, but the steps that you're going to take are very similar to be able to manage these types of incidents. And it is happening for an extended period of time. An aircraft going off the runway may disrupt operations for several hours, maybe a day if it's a more extreme case, but then the situation normalizes. There's no intent to cause harm during one of those events. In this type of situation, it is a security-related event.
It's ongoing for an extended period of time, but the plan that you have for those types of situations should take into account the security events. And if you have those types of plans, you practice your response to these types of scenarios and you have your people informed on what their responses are when these are activated, you can ensure that continuity can take place even during times of conflict. Israel has had to deal with this type of activity for an extended period of time. I think the fact that Israel has persevered through that type of activity since October of 2023, where the issues that we're seeing right now in the Gulf States essentially were happening for months on end in Israel, has really shown that if you have a civil aviation authority that is working collaboratively with the military forces and the airlines to develop plans to keep aircraft safe, both in the air and on the ground, and you have clear thresholds for when you will cancel flights, divert flights, halt flights, and then resume flights, you build trust with everybody involved in the process and the passengers have trust too, and they'll continue to fly in a chaotic environment because they trust that the authorities are working together to solve complex airspace and airport disruption.
Karen Walker: Yeah. So the key message is have a plan. I'm glad you brought up the case of Israel because time and again, they've always had a plan across the airlines, the airports, and as you say, and across everybody that's involved. So that's the main thing right now. Obviously, if I can just steer a little towards some of the longer-term potential issues here for airlines especially, because of the region that's still taking place in everybody's eyes are on oil prices and oil delivery availability because even if they have the oil, can they get it through the Strait of Hormuz and is there a shortage in terms of not being able to access that oil? So, we've already seen oil prices go up a lot. That's a critical cost factor for airlines. It's the second biggest cost after labor. And they were banking on oil prices being, if anything, quite a lot lower this year than last year, and that's already obviously not the case.
So, my point that I'd love to hear from you here is, where do you see in what you're watching so far? I know it's very early stages in terms of the length of this war. Are we still in an escalation mode? Where do you see this in terms of whether it's going to be a short, sharp thing and then oil prices could hopefully come down or is there going to be some lengthy process to this?
Matt Borie: So, the current situation right now is our view is we're still in an escalatory mode. Over the last 24 to 48 hours, Iran has expanded the target types that it has gone after. Turkey was targeted twice with ballistic missiles yesterday that were shot down towards Incirlik Airbase. Cyprus has been targeted several times by either Iran or one of its proxy groups with drones. RAF Akrotiri was hit with a drone and two additional drones were shot down. There have been two airports, both Paphos and Larnaca, who have had to suspend flights due to suspected drone activity. So that combined with today's targeting of Nakhchivan Airport in Azerbaijan, another location that was not really anticipated to be part of this conflict, shows that Iran is trying to expand the geographic scope of where activity is occurring. While they are going to struggle to conduct consistent attacks on Israel in the days ahead, they can use their capabilities to target other countries where just one or two attacks can give the influence that escalation’s occurring, even if the actual impact on the ground is only a single event.
So, our view is that Iran is trying to put pressure on the United States and Israel by including more countries in the conflict to get those countries to pressure them to stop. I think when it comes to oil prices, there's one key thing that we're watching. The Yemeni Houthis who are an Iranian-backed militant group who launched hundreds of ballistic missile and drone attacks on ships in the Gulf of Aden and Bab el-Mandeb Strait since October 2023 and have targeted Israel as well, they have not gotten involved in the conflict yet. Iran has not activated them. They also targeted Saudi Arabia on hundreds of occasions with missiles and drones, including oil facilities from 2015 to 2022. If the Yemeni Houthis enter the conflict on behalf of Iran and start targeting commercial vessels in the Gulf of Aden and the Southern Red Sea again, and if they start conducting attacks against Saudi oil facilities, that will be the next escalatory spike on oil prices.
And then the other area that could spike oil prices further would be the US and Israel have refrained so far from attacking the Iranian oil sector. If Israel and the United States start targeting the Iranian oil sector and take out Iran's capacity to extract petroleum to sell to the open market, even if they are restricted in who they can sell to or have limited buyers, it's still a pretty significant supply of well over 1 million barrels a day. If that were taken offline, China and potentially India would need to find other sources of oil. Constraints are already happening in the Gulf states on their ability to pass oil through the Strait of Hormuz. And so, with those pressures already in place, it would be a difficult situation for oil prices were those two things to happen. Now, could this conflict be de-escalated and averted before those two things to happen?
Yes, of course. That is a possibility that we're looking at. A two-week conflict is our most likely outcome from our assessment at Osprey. But as I said on a webinar, “Kyiv in three days” was the term used around the Russian invasion of Ukraine and that Russia would take Kyiv within a three-day period. That obviously didn't happen and wars have an unpredictable way of developing when they start. I, myself, served in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Neither of those were expected to be decades-long conflicts, let alone years-long conflicts. And so while Osprey is monitoring for signs of escalation and de-escalation, I think everybody wants the conflict to stop impacting business and ordinary people's lives. When a war starts, it doesn't always stop in a timely fashion.
Karen Walker: No, you're right. Absolutely. It still sounds very much, from your summary there, unstable situation that people just can't predict which way this war's going to go, and that's wars typically anyway, but it clearly ... The points you've just raised there, there's clearly still risk for the oil situation and risk for the airspace. What you were saying in terms of Iran trying to broaden this out presumably means airspace in other parts of the world could start to be closed, yeah?
Matt Borie: Well, we've already seen Azerbaijan close the southern portion of their airspace after the attack that occurred. The Eastern Mediterranean Sea near Cyprus is going to have increased military air activity, which is going to put pressure on air corridors. And there could be the potential for airspace closures in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea if Iran continues to try to attack areas around Cyprus and Turkey because the areas in Turkey they're targeting are essentially right across the Eastern Mediterranean Sea from Cyprus. So Incirlik Airbase and RAF Akrotiri are not very far from each other. They're both in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea area. And you have Izmir, for example, which is right there in between Cyprus and Adana on the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, which is a very popular tourist destination, for example. So you're going to have people in places where they're going for a vacation, where they're spending business trips to the Middle East that they're expecting to be safe and secure.
But unfortunately, the way that this conflict is evolving, it may be relatively safe on the ground, but the airspace above continues to be the most active part of this conflict because of the Iranian use of drones and missiles and the fact that you need air and air defenses to defend against that.
Karen Walker: Yeah, and obviously this is a constantly changing situation, but one of the things that I particularly seem to be noticing when it comes to the major airports, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Hamad in Doha, those major airports in this area, which are so important for connectivity, what we're seeing here is talk about drones and drone attacks, and that's making a difference both in terms of them being targeted and damaged. What's your view on that? What are you hearing on that?
Matt Borie: So during the conflict, Iran has targeted several civilian airports: Kuwait City International, Riyadh International, Hamad International in Doha, Bahrain International, and then both Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports. Now, most of those airports were targeted when they were closed. However, it does appear that today, Abu Dhabi International Airport has been targeted for the second time in a drone attack. Now, the issue here from Osprey's perspective is most air defense networks were designed against threats around ballistic missiles and around conventional fighter aircraft and bomber aircraft. Air defenses in use today were designed in the 1980s and '90s and probably produced in the 2000s, and it was a fundamentally different type of warfare. Today's development of drones and the proliferation, the way that they're operated, the numbers of targets that can be launched at one location at a time at a complexity, at a much lower altitude level and a slower speed than the typical types of targets that these air defenses were designed for.
So it is really testing the limits of how countries integrate their airspace with military aircraft and air defenses, not only to defend against drone threats, but how do you detect the drone threats, which operate in a much different way than what the intent of the systems and training was put in place for how to deal with these types of situations from a military perspective.
Karen Walker: Right. Yeah. Thank you. Very interesting, very concerning. Our hearts go out to those people at the airport that have been struck today. Thank you, Matt. You've given a very insightful summary of where things stand and where they may or may not go. The best way to look at this hopefully is that the better scenario emerges, as you said, maybe a two-week war. But the main thing is that airlines and airports adapt however difficult that is. And as you say, use their plans to adapt. And most, of course, what they'll be doing is keeping safety at the very forefront of all of this. So Matt, thank you so much again for your time. And thank you also to our producer, Cory Hitt, and of course a huge thank you to our listeners. Make sure you don't miss us each week by subscribing to Window Seat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you like to listen.
This is Karen Walker, disembarking from Window Seat.
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