Blitzkrieg did not work for Vladimir Putin in Ukraine, nor is it working for Donald Trump in the Middle East. We now have a more chaotic world where crossing borders is increasingly complicated. Globalization promised global integration in economic, political, technological, social, and cultural aspects, turning the world into an interconnected "global village," but that dream fades amid bombings, sieges, and threats.
Navigation, whether by air or sea, has become increasingly complex. The actions of the United States and Israel against the ayatollah regime have not only led to the closure of the strategic Strait of Hormuz but have also necessitated the creation of two narrow air corridors to avoid flying over war zones.
The war situation over the Persian Gulf and Iran has caused the closure of airspace and the need to skirt the area to the south, without flying over the Horn of Africa, a region complicated by the instability of failed states like Somalia, countries in civil war like Sudan, or uncontrolled territories like Yemen.
The other available airspace is to the north of Iran, Lebanon, and Syria, passing just above Azerbaijan. Why? Because Iran is a war zone, but just a little further north is the conflict in Ukraine, which not only affects the territory controlled by the Kiev government but also areas occupied by Moscow and Russia itself, which receives visits from missiles and drones launched by Ukraine daily. In that same territory, in 2014, pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk shot down Malaysian Airlines' MH17, a passenger plane with nearly 300 people on board, including the crew.
When a conflict forces the closure or avoidance of airspace, the impact on commercial aviation is felt almost immediately in costs. It is not a single factor; it is the combination of several linked effects. The first is distance. If an aircraft cannot cross a war zone, it has to detour around it. This can add from 30 minutes to several hours of flight time depending on the route. For example, after the closure of Russian airspace, many flights between Europe and Asia had to divert thousands of kilometers to the south or north. The same happened in January during the operation to capture Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela: flights to the Caribbean had to navigate around the area.
The second is fuel. Jet fuel is the largest operational expense for an airline, typically between 25% and 35% of the total flight cost. Each additional hour of flight can mean several extra tons of fuel, increasing operational costs. The third is payload. On very long routes, if the aircraft needs more fuel to cover the detour, it must reduce passengers or cargo to avoid exceeding the maximum takeoff weight.
The fourth is aircraft utilization. A longer route means the aircraft takes longer to complete each rotation. This results in fewer flights per day with the same aircraft, reducing fleet efficiency and requiring crew reorganization.
The fifth is insurance and risk, which may be what ruins companies that have to continue flying to the Persian Gulf. When a conflict intensifies near an air route, insurers apply war risk premiums. These special policies can significantly increase the cost of operating in certain regions or near them. For Etihad, Emirates, or Qatar Airlines, the premium has tripled.
And the sixth is the domino effect on the aviation system. Diversions often concentrate traffic in alternative corridors, leading to more congestion, delays, and air traffic control costs. Globally, the closure of a few strategic airspaces is enough to disrupt routes between entire continents.
Aviation expert Alex Macheras states that "when a war closes key airspaces, airlines have to redraw their route maps overnight." Raúl Medina, director of Eurocontrol, comments that "the closure of airspaces due to conflicts forces airlines to divert through longer corridors, leading to congestion in the airspace."
In the case of maritime navigation, the situation is not much better. The closure of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran forces almost all traffic to divert through the Red Sea to the Suez Canal, a place that is also dangerous: the Houthi militia, funded by Iran, has already warned that they have "their finger on the trigger" to start attacking tankers in the area. Currently, a long line of these tankers enters the Bab el Mandeb Strait to load crude oil at the terminal that Saudi Arabia (called East-West) built through the desert to not depend entirely on the Persian Gulf. Although it has the capacity to transport five million barrels daily, it alleviates the situation but does not solve it.
The problem for insurers is the same as with aircraft: not only can tankers be attacked, but a blockade or war in the Strait of Hormuz turns all navigation into a war risk zone, completely changing maritime insurance.
The first issue is war insurance (war risk insurance). In peacetime, tankers have standard policies covering accidents, collisions, or spills. But acts of war are excluded from these policies. To navigate in areas like the Gulf during a conflict like the current one, where Iran has already attacked 16 ships, shipowners have to purchase very expensive additional coverage. The second issue is the risk of total loss of the ship and cargo. A Very Large Crude Carrier (VLCC) can transport two million barrels of crude oil and have a total value - ship plus cargo - easily exceeding $200 million. If a naval mine, missile, or drone destroys the vessel, the insurer will pay huge compensations.
David Smith, head of maritime insurance at McGill and Partners, states: "Getting war insurance is one thing. Transiting the Strait of Hormuz is a completely different matter."