Gulf airspace closures push African carriers to rebuild networks around home hubs [إغلاق الأجواء الخليجية يدفع الناقلات الأفريقية إلى إعادة بناء شبكاتها]

Kenya Airways suspended flights to Dubai and other Gulf cities earlier this year following airspace closures and security concerns, offering rebooking or full refunds without penalty. The decision was driven by safety rather than economics, but its commercial effect has been instructive: the carrier rerouted traffic through Nairobi and found demand from Europe, North America and Asia holding up.

That matters because African carriers have long fed Gulf hubs rather than competing with them. When Gulf routings became unreliable, traffic did not simply disappear — it redistributed through African hubs that could absorb it. Nairobi and Addis Ababa both benefited.

The caution is that this was a stress test, not a strategy. Kenya Airways carried a pre-tax loss of USD 138 million in 2025, and rerouting does not fix a cost base. IATA has noted ten regional airspaces affected by the conflict, with jet fuel peaking above USD 200 a barrel and crack spreads at record highs.

Our read: the question is whether African hubs retain any of this traffic once Gulf routings normalise. Infrastructure and reliability, not fares, will decide it.