Wizz Air delays Abu Dhabi return and halts Amman flights over Middle East security advice

Wizz Air has postponed the restart of flights to Abu Dhabi from six European cities and suspended its recently launched Budapest-Amman service, less than a month after announcing the routes. The airline cites updated security advice for the region from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency.

Services to the emirate were due to resume in late October from Budapest, Cluj in Romania, Krakow and Katowice in Poland, Larnaca in Cyprus and Sofia, the Bulgarian capital. Wizz Air now says those routes have been pushed back to 10 January 2027.

The airline says the continued closure of Iraqi airspace means the Airbus A321neo aircraft used on the services need longer routings and technical refuelling stops. Together with current fuel prices, it says, the routes are not commercially viable under present conditions.

The planned return followed Wizz Air's decision to shut its Abu Dhabi subsidiary just over a year ago. The airline has said it has no plans to reopen a base in the emirate.

Flights between Budapest and Amman, which began last month, are suspended until 25 October. Wizz Air says Jordanian airspace was placed on a do-not-operate list in EASA's latest conflict zone information bulletin. The agency revised its bulletin for Jordan late last month to reflect a change in the risk level.

In the advisory, EASA cites recurrent Iranian missile attacks, and to a lesser extent drone attacks, against assets in Jordan, along with the activation of air-defence systems, as creating an increased risk that civilian aircraft could be misidentified.