The aviation insurance market is bracing for turbulence as Iran attacks on Gulf airports and sweeping airspace closures across the Middle East trigger a hard market cycle not seen since the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

More than 3,400 flights were cancelled Sunday across seven airports, Flightradar24 data shows. Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad – which collectively move roughly 90,000 passengers daily – have suspended operations indefinitely.

The European Union Aviation Safety Agency declared a "high risk to civil aviation" across the region.

Retaliatory Iran attacks damaged airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Kuwait, with one fatality at Zayed International Airport. Insurers are targeting rate increases of at least 10% for "clean" risks, with far steeper hikes for carriers on Middle Eastern routes.

Rerouted flights add 30 to 90 minutes per journey, driving up fuel and maintenance costs already up 39% over three years.

Echoes of the Russia-Ukraine crisis

The market has faced a comparable shock before. When Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, roughly 400 foreign-leased aircraft worth more than US$10 billion were seized after Moscow banned their export, OECD data shows.

Hull war insurers pulled capacity and imposed triple-digit rate increases, WTW research from July 2025 noted.

That crisis centred on trapped assets; the current disruption involves physical infrastructure damage and airspace denial. But the market response – capacity withdrawal, portfolio reviews, hard-market triggers – follows a familiar pattern.

How such losses are classified was settled last year. In a June 2025 High Court ruling, Judge Christopher Butcher determined that aircraft stranded in Russia were lost under war risk, not all risk – capping potential insurer payouts, HKA analysis noted. AerCap confirmed the judgment secured US$1.035 billion.

For the current crisis, the implications are direct: war risk aggregate limits, already tested by Russia-related claims, will shape how much aviation insurance capacity remains.

What comes next

Ben Rose, president of reinsurance platform Supercede, said the crisis demands urgent scrutiny. "Insurance CEOs likely spent the weekend on the phone with their ceded reinsurance teams, assessing their portfolios' potential exposures," Rose said.

Rose added that cautious underwriting protects reinsurer relationships while acting as "a bellwether for local operators who, upon losing coverage, have an externally validated reason to suspend" activities.

Observers are mapping three scenarios. Swift diplomacy could mirror the brief June 2025 Israel-Iran attacks, where equities recovered once supply routes proved intact.

Extended disruption would compound damage claims with business interruption; JPMorgan has warned Gulf producers risk exhausting storage within weeks.

The most consequential outcome is a structural repricing of Middle East aviation insurance, with the region's hubs permanently attracting higher war-risk premiums.