While it’s anyone’s guess how long this lasts, American Airlines has just suspended its only route to the Middle East, as flagged by View from the Wing.
In this post:
American cancels Philadelphia to Doha flights
American operates daily flights between Philadelphia (PHL) and Doha (DOH) using Boeing 787-9s. This route is primarily operated in order to provide connections to Qatar Airways’ network, given that the two airlines both belong to oneworld, and even have a strategic partnership.
Now American has temporarily suspended this route. The service was suspended as of Wednesday, June 18, 2025, and for now, the suspension is through Sunday, June 22, 2025.
Here’s how American describes this decision:
American Airlines has made adjustments to its Doha, Qatar (DOH) operation, temporarily suspending flights between DOH and Philadelphia (PHL) until Sunday, June 22. We will continue to monitor the situation with safety and security top of mind and make any additional adjustments as needed.
Meanwhile the United States Embassy in Qatar has advised travelers to exercise increased vigilance:
Out of an abundance of caution and in light of ongoing regional hostilities, the U.S. Embassy has advised its personnel to exercise increased vigilance and has temporarily restricted access to Al Udeid Air Base. We recommend that U.S. citizens in Qatar take similar precautions.
Of course in recent times we’ve seen Delta and United repeatedly suspended flights to Tel Aviv (TLV) in light of the ongoing conflict, but this is the first time that American has suspended its Middle East service over safety concerns. United, meanwhile, has also just suspended its Dubai (DXB) flights, meaning all Middle East service by US carriers has been put on pause.
I’m curious what prompted this suspension
I don’t really know what to say here that isn’t political, given how polarizing everything going on is. It’s certainly a concerning time, in terms of the escalation of tensions in the Middle East.
One wonders what specifically is prompting American to suspend Doha flights. Obviously there’s a lot of unrest in the region, but that doesn’t necessarily explain why service is being cut to countries that are quite safe (as of now), where local carriers are still operating as usual.
Is it a safety concern with crews being on the ground in Qatar, and the risk of something happening to them? Is the concern that someone may try to carry out an attack on the aircraft departing Doha? Is it an issue with the route American takes, which typically passes not too far from Egypt?
Qatar is of course an incredibly safe country during good times, given its alliances. Geopolitics is just endlessly confusing and fascinating, when you look at the various alliances, which are now really being put to the test.
Bottom line
American is suspending its Philadelphia to Doha route for several days, a decision that came with “safety and security top of mind.” This decision coincides with the US Embassy in Qatar telling Americans to exercise increased precautions. It’s not known what exactly is prompting this diversion, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see the route suspended for more than several days.
What do you make of American suspending Doha flights?
Makes perfect sense. I've been wondering about these two flights -- along with AA & UA's flights to Delhi. All four of these flights (2x DEL, DXB, and DOH) fly very close to Iranian airspace and it wouldn't take much for Iran to "accidentally" hit one of those planes.
For those who think this couldn't happen (by accident or otherwise), I'd refer to you to MH-17 (2014) which was shot down over Ukraine or Iran Air 655 (688) which was enroute to Dubai
Rather AA and UA cut their flights to the middle east altogether; who wants to fly lackluster airlines when you can fly with the ME3 to those regions. Every time I look for flights that route through that region on AA, I see availability by then gaslight on it being the PHL to DOH by AA. I rather just see no availability rather than availability on a carrier I do not want to fly.
Nonsense. Emirates and Qatar hype up their flagship products, but when you don't get them you're stuck in J cabins arguably far worse than those found on an AA 777/787.
On QR 737 rn from Doha to SFO. Made a lil detour to avoid Israel, added about an hour of flight time
This is not a new detour; they've been flying across Saudi Arabia and then up the Suez Canal for quite sometime (ie: over a year). This isn't just QR. AA and UA's flights to DOH and DXB (respectively) have been taking similar routes
Some might be interested in the U.S. Airline Rankings. Tim Dunn will be pleased no doubt.
https://thepointsguy.com/airline/best-us-airlines-2025/?utm_source=tpge-best-airlines-ds-june-2025&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=13936913&utm_usr=96cca048f70216df9d4b811774b39d338f430f67d68fff2d13af35601badcea9&utm_template=18212356
Are you seriously going to spam every thread topic with this "rankings" nonsense?
I have to wonder why it's only the Philly flights.... flights to Doha are still leaving out of JFK; are the routes that different? If the cancellations are really about airspace, hopefully they can reroute.
AA only has flights to Qatar from PHL. Any other flights you're seeing with an AA code would be AA codeshare on Qatar Airways flights.
AA are being pussies. Qatar is on friendly terms with Iran and is non confrontational with Israel. They also have US and Russian military installations, so they basically schmooze everyone. Nobody is going to target a passenger jet heading there for fear of a major political incident with a neutral.
Israel and Iran are targeting one another, so you'd want to avoid the space above those two and the path between. But you could...
AA are being pussies. Qatar is on friendly terms with Iran and is non confrontational with Israel. They also have US and Russian military installations, so they basically schmooze everyone. Nobody is going to target a passenger jet heading there for fear of a major political incident with a neutral.
Israel and Iran are targeting one another, so you'd want to avoid the space above those two and the path between. But you could vector your way around to safely serve PHL-DOH.
Completely uneducated comment. Shows your lack of geography, and airspace awareness. Much more to it than "friendly".
Don't ever question my knowledge of geography, you neophyte!
Iran surely has not forgotten that we shot down one of their passenger planes in 1988. When they threaten our interests in the region, surely that's one of the things on their minds.
Iran still believes that the ummah is still fighting the First Crusade.
ELAL and others can be seen on FlightRadar24 as flying to TLV.
I suspect their hull insurance carrier demanded the suspension out of an abundance of caution.
AF KL also canceled Dubai flights
No, it didn't. AF662 is enroute CDG to DXB as we speak. Only one flight was cancelled yesterday, the route itself is not affected.
I would be worried flying so close to Iran these days as Qatar is located geographically. There are lots of missiles in the air lately. Could be a situation like Malaysia Airlines flight 17. I pray that sort of tragedy doesn’t happen again!
Well even missiles sometimes missed their intended targets so i think they are taking a caution approach.
United canceled EWR/DXB starting 3 days ago.
I think this suspension has to do with the US having a military base in Qatar with a significant presence and strategic importance. Should the US directly get involved in attacking Iran (which seems far too likely given recent comments and devlopments), Iran has publicly stated they will retaliate against the US, likely through military targets in the region but potentially beyond that. With the US' largest military base (at least to my knowledge) in...
I think this suspension has to do with the US having a military base in Qatar with a significant presence and strategic importance. Should the US directly get involved in attacking Iran (which seems far too likely given recent comments and devlopments), Iran has publicly stated they will retaliate against the US, likely through military targets in the region but potentially beyond that. With the US' largest military base (at least to my knowledge) in the region being in Qatar, I assume it will be a likely target. Should Iran want to go beyond military targets, I guess going after an airline named "American" on their only flight to the Middle East could be of concern.
But Iran won't chance hitting Qatar, who is one of their only 'friends' in the entire Gulf region. And that US base has plenty of Qataris serving and working there. No way they'd do it. More likely to hit something in a place like Bahrain, Saudi or the UAE.
If one believes that there is a possibility that the US will attack Iran, and there is therefore a possibility that Iran will attack US assets in the region, it's not a crazy move by the flag carrier of the US.
Netanyahu roped Trump into cancelling JCPOA in his first term, now he's trying to rope Trump into directly attacking Iran. It's reminiscent of W Bush getting roped in (after much effort by Netanyahu, imagine that) to attacking Iraq based on groundless claims of Iraq rebuilding its WMD stockpiles. Given Netanyahu's historical success in this, it seems like a prudent move by the airlines. Better safe than sorry in case Trump escalates everything even further.
Dusty, I am unconvinced that Netanyahu was an actor in the Iraq WMD debacle. It was mostly down to certain British Prime Minister who was hoping for his Margaret Thatcher Falkland Islands war success moment …. he failed miserably.
@AeroB13a
Did you forget Netanyahu's testimony to Congress in 2002? Sure Blair drank and tried to sell the same koolaid Netanyahu was pushing, but without Congressional approval Bush was not going into Iraq, and without Bush and the US, Blair was not going into Iraq. No one person is solely to blame, but Netanyahu absolutely had outsized influence on Congress's decision to invade, despite being a private citizen at the time. It's especially telling...
@AeroB13a
Did you forget Netanyahu's testimony to Congress in 2002? Sure Blair drank and tried to sell the same koolaid Netanyahu was pushing, but without Congressional approval Bush was not going into Iraq, and without Bush and the US, Blair was not going into Iraq. No one person is solely to blame, but Netanyahu absolutely had outsized influence on Congress's decision to invade, despite being a private citizen at the time. It's especially telling that Ariel Sharon, the actual leader of Israel at the time, told Bush explicitly that Israel wouldn't have any part in the decision one way or the other, but apparently Netanyahu's testimony held more sway than the actual elected leader of Israel.
Dusty, every day is a school day and today I have learned something new. Thank you for sharing that knowledge.
Sarcasm?
Not from me Calidude, I am genuinely grateful for the information graciously provided by Dusty.
United has also suspended the their DXB route for a similar time frame. The first cancelled outbound began yesterday. I was on that and it created a pretty complicated re-routing to get to Dubai
United has also canceled DXB.
United has cancelled its flights to DXB for the next few days
Talk about panicking or being sensible, that is the question?
Does AA know something about the region which has not been announced as yet? …. one can only speculate.
Top-50 airline execs really don't panic when they have to make sensitive multi-million dollar operational and commercial decisions. They just tend to do what needs to be done.
Any idea how this route was performing? Any chance AA saw an opportunity to axe an unprofitable route without jeopardizing their partnership with QR?
It's my understanding the Qatari government was also offering some substantial incentives for flying to DOH
Dan, one is hearing whispers on the right side of the pond, that the Gulf passenger traffic is moving away from the area rather than to it. That could well be a sensible move.
No clue what the average fare was, but t100 shows load factors in the upper 80s/ lower 90s on average. So pretty full.