THE Middle East is probably not high on many people’s travel lists these days, for business or pleasure. If the deteriorating situation on the ground through much of the region wasn’t bad enough, the skies are becoming increasingly perilous as well. The recent fatal crash of a Russian airliner in Egypt, apparently downed by an Islamic State bomb, has left Egypt fearing for the future of its most popular resort. Just this week, British Airways and easyJet, two of the biggest carriers serving the town, said they would be postponing flights until January at the earliest. The shooting down of a Russian plane by Turkish military this week will only augment fears of flying over the region. And with IS marauding through swaths of Syria and Iraq, the U.S. Department of State issued a worldwide travel alert on Monday, alerting travellers of an increased terror risk.
It is in this context that Iraqi Airways made the surprising announcement last week that it will begin a nonstop service between Washington, DC and Baghdad. The flights, which the airline’s director says will begin next year, will be the only direct commercial routes between Iraq and America. In some ways, the news isn’t completely out of line with recent trends. The Middle East has become an important international travel hub, with Dubai now the world’s busiest airport and Emirates the world’s top airline when it comes to the number of international passengers. Baghdad’s airport has likewise expanded in recent years after decades of limited service, adding and resuming flights to cities in Europe and Asia. And most flights from Washington to Baghdad currently require a connection through Istanbul, Dubai or Abu Dhabi; as a result, many take upward of 20 hours.
And yet one has to wonder who, exactly, will populate the new service. The more common choice for an airline launching its first flights to America would have been New York—a bigger tourist draw, population centre, and business hub. The decision to go with a capital-to-capital route would suggest that the airline is hoping for lots of government travel. But American government regulations require American officials to fly on a “US Flag Air Carrier” unless it is all but impossible. And while no American airlines fly to Baghdad, they do have code-share flights with Middle Eastern airlines, which fulfill the regulation’s requirement. (Flights on US airlines may not be coming anytime soon: last year the Federal Aviation Administration banned American carriers from flying over Iraq at all, citing the danger posed by the Islamic State.)
Tourism, then? The State Department warns Americans against “all but essential travel” to Iraq, noting that “US citizens in Iraq remain at high risk for kidnapping and terrorist violence.” Nor are they advised to fly to Baghdad out of a sense of martial entrepreneurship; the State Department adds, “Private US citizens are strongly discouraged from traveling to Iraq to join in armed conflict.”
