Iraq may not be among Western travelers’ most desired destinations quite yet, but some of the world’s leading airlines have decided that flying to the war-ravaged country can be profitable, so they are returning there after a 20-year absence.
Although two of Europe’s major carriers — Austrian Airlines and Turkish Airlines — have been serving Iraq since 2008, their re-entry in that market was viewed as only moderately significant at the time, and none of their peers followed suit.
Austrian chose Erbil, the capital of Kurdish Northern Iraq, which was never nearly as violent as the rest of the country. Turkish began flying to Baghdad, as well as Erbil, but Turkey is not a European Union member. Neither carrier has a truly global network to connect Iraq with many other countries on different continents.
Britain’s second-largest carrier, BMI, said in April it would also start flights to Baghdad, but those plans haven’t materialized.
Last week, Iraq received a major vote of confidence when Germany’s Lufthansa became the largest airline to announce renewed services for the first time since the first Gulf War, beginning this summer. It operated flights to the country from 1956 until 1990. Both Austrian and BMI are part of the Lufthansa Group.
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