EgyptAir Keeps Cutting the Same Four Middle East Cities

EgyptAir halted flights to Beirut, Amman, Baghdad and Erbil on June 16, 2025, until further notice, citing passenger and crew safety.

The national carrier asked travellers on those routes to reconfirm their bookings. The four cities were not a one-off cut. EgyptAir has pulled them as a set through later Israel-Iran rounds, including a 13-destination freeze on February 28, 2026, then put Beirut back on a two-a-day Cairo roster from April 28.

Why EgyptAir Grounded Beirut, Amman, Baghdad and Erbil

The June order covered all flights to and from the four airports and stayed in force until the carrier judged the region stable. EgyptAir framed the step as a safety hold for passengers and crews amid military activity and unrest, and it said it would restore the cities once it could assure that safety.

The four names sit on a short arc from the Levant into Iraq. Beirut and Amman are the Cairo links into Lebanon and Jordan. Baghdad and Erbil are the links into federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region. When Jordan, Iraq or Lebanon close airspace, those four spokes fail together, which is why the carrier writes them as one notice.

Due to current events in the region and out of concern for the safety of its customers, EgyptAir announces the cancellation of its flights to Beirut, Amman, Baghdad, and Erbil airports until the situation in the region stabilizes.

EgyptAir, official statement, June 16, 2025

Other carriers were already rerouting or grounding flying over Lebanon, Syria and Iraq in that period. EgyptAir’s notice was shorter than a full Gulf shutdown. It still removed the cheap state-carrier path between Cairo and those four cities, which is the path Egyptian families, students and contract workers actually buy.

The Same Four Cities Went Dark in 2024

The June 2025 package followed a rehearsal. EgyptAir has used Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon as a single airspace switch before, then restored the flying once those countries reopened their skies.

THE FOUR-CITY SWITCH

1. April 14, 2024: Suspends flights to and from Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon after those countries close airspace.
2. April 15, 2024: Resumes the same three countries after the airspace reopens, a one-day halt.
3. September 24, 2024: Cancels Cairo to Beirut, including MS713 at 5:00 a.m. and MS709 at 9:15 a.m., until the situation in Lebanon stabilizes.
4. October 26, 2024: Cancels Baghdad and Erbil, plus Amman flight MS719, hours after Israeli strikes on Iran.
5. December 19, 2024: Restores direct Cairo to Beirut after a three-month gap, with the carrier citing calmer conditions in Lebanon.
6. June 16, 2025: Halts Beirut, Amman, Baghdad and Erbil until further notice.
7. July 1, 2025: The Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority eases rules so Lebanon and Jordan can be flown day and night, keeps Iraq limited to daylight flights, and defers Iran, Israel and Syria.
8. February 28, 2026: Folds the same four cities into a 13-destination freeze as U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran close neighboring airspace.
9. April 28, 2026: Restarts two daily Cairo to Beirut flights as part of a staged return.
10. September 28, 2026: Cairo to Baghdad flight MS627 is operating again, six days a week.

The April 2024 halt lasted a day because the constraint was airspace, not a damaged airport. The September 2024 Beirut cut lasted until December 19. When Israel struck Iran in late October 2024, Baghdad, Erbil and Amman came off the board in hours. The June 2025 notice put all four back in one sentence.

Thirteen Destinations Vanished With the February Strikes

On February 28, 2026, the United States and Israel opened what they called major combat operations against Iran. U.S. President Donald Trump announced the strikes. Iran fired missiles and drones at U.S. bases and at facilities in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and Israel, and some of those missiles were intercepted over Jordan and the UAE.

Iran, Israel, Iraq, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and the UAE closed airspace. That is eight flight-information regions around Egypt going dark on the same day. EgyptAir answered with an until-further-notice halt from Cairo to 13 cities, monitored from the Crisis Room at the Integrated Operations Center by Captain Ahmed Adel, chairman and managing director of EgyptAir Holding Company.

THE FEBRUARY 28 LIST FROM CAIRO

• UAE: Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah.
• Gulf states: Doha, Bahrain, Kuwait and Muscat.
• Saudi Arabia: Qassim and Dammam.
• The original four: Erbil, Baghdad, Amman and Beirut.

Statement 4, issued March 1, 2026, kept 11 of those cities on hold and dropped Muscat and Qassim, a one-day shrink that left the original four still dark. Adel’s crisis room, not a tourist-board press note, was running the map. Passengers were told to check 1717 from an Egyptian mobile, landline 090070000, or the international lines +97142306666 and +966122297777, plus callcenter@egyptair.com.

The through-ticket problem showed up in the weeks after that freeze. Long-haul seats into Cairo were still being sold on itineraries whose evening Cairo to Amman leg already showed cancelled on the airline’s site, which leaves a passenger in Terminal 3 with no spoke home.

Cairo’s Airspace Stayed Open Anyway

Egypt’s Ministry of Civil Aviation said Egyptian airspace remained open and at normal capacity on February 28, and that Cairo was preparing to take flights diverted from neighboring states. The flag carrier was cutting spokes. The state was collecting the overflights and the diversions.

The same day, the Egyptian Civil Aviation Authority issued SIB 02-2026, a mandatory bulletin on adjacent airspace closures that bound every Egyptian operator. It warned of sudden FIR shutdowns, conflict-zone threats, GNSS jamming and spoofing, and a shortage of usable alternates. Operators were told to plan to avoid Iranian airspace at all altitudes unless a risk assessment brought the exposure down, with the accountable executive signing that assessment.

That is the binding paper behind “until further notice.” The June 2025 four-city notice read as a customer-safety hold. The February bulletin made the same geography a compliance problem: if Jordan, Iraq or Lebanon is a conflict-adjacent FIR, Cairo to Amman, Baghdad, Erbil and Beirut cannot be flown as routine city pairs until the assessment clears.

When EgyptAir Put Beirut Back on the Board

EgyptAir said on April 26, 2026, that it would restore flying in stages. Two daily Cairo to Beirut flights would restart on April 28. Doha would run once a day. Cairo to Riyadh would go to three daily flights from May 1, with three weekly flights from Alexandria from May 10, and more Riyadh frequencies under study if demand held. Bahrain and Kuwait stayed on hold pending those countries’ aviation authorities.

THE SPRING REBUILD

• Two daily: Cairo to Beirut from April 28, 2026.
• Three daily: Cairo to Riyadh from May 1, plus three weekly from Alexandria from May 10.
• Once daily: Cairo to Doha in that same restart.
• Still on hold then: Bahrain and Kuwait, awaiting local aviation authorities.

Amman was not named in that April 26 list. Neither were Baghdad or Erbil. Beirut was the Levant spoke the carrier put back first, which matches the December 19, 2024 return after the earlier three-month Beirut gap. Status listings later showed MS713, a Cairo to Beirut 737-800 service, landing on September 1, 2026, on a six-flights-a-week pattern over a 563 km hop.

By September 28, Cairo to Baghdad was moving again. Status listings for MS627 showed the flight operating that morning on a six-day weekly pattern over 1,262 km, about 1 hour 48 minutes in the air. That is the same Baghdad that sat inside both the June 2025 four-city halt and the February 13-city freeze.

October Filings and the Carriers Still Waiting

Published October schedules, compiled from OAG data as of September 24, 2026, still listed daily EgyptAir flights between Beirut and Cairo into late October. Filings also kept MS635 on Cairo to Erbil for October. Those are schedules, not a new safety certificate. They do show the flag carrier putting the old spokes back on the sheet while several European groups were still printing return dates.

WHERE THE FOUR CITIES STOOD

Lufthansa Group has said several Middle East cities, including Erbil, remain on hold through October 24. Eurowings has listed Erbil from November 3 and Amman from November 7, and a twice-weekly Baghdad service from Berlin and Dusseldorf from December 10. Air France has already resumed Beirut and has pointed to October 24 at the earliest for Dubai and Riyadh. The flag carrier that wrote the four-city headline is, on Beirut and Baghdad, ahead of groups that published calendars.

Anyone still holding paper on the four cities was told, in every round, to reconfirm through 1717, the landline, the two international numbers, the website, a sales office or an agent. That is also the path into cancellations, refunds and rebooking help when a spoke dies in the middle of a connecting ticket.

HOW EGYPTAIR TOLD PASSENGERS TO CHECK

• From Egypt: 1717 on a mobile, or landline 090070000.
• From abroad: +97142306666 or +966122297777.
• In writing: callcenter@egyptair.com, the website, a sales office or a travel agent.

The next time Jordan, Iraq or Lebanon closes a FIR, the same four airport codes are the ones EgyptAir already knows how to take down in a single sentence. Beirut’s two-a-day return and Baghdad’s September flying show the switch also moves the other way, city by city, once the assessment clears.