With U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraq in 2003, the battle that started in 2003 as a part of George W. Bush’s wider battle on terror after 9/11 continues to have far-reaching penalties throughout the area.
Common breakouts of political instability between the federal government and completely different militias, together with the continued humanitarian disaster as a million Iraqis stay internally displaced, has persistently saved the nation on the prime of the U.S. State Division’s Stage 4 “Do Not Travel” advisory listing.
“Do not travel to Iraq due to terrorism, kidnapping, armed conflict, civil unrest, and the U.S. government’s limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Iraq,” the advisory final up to date in July 2025 reads. “U.S. citizens in Iraq face high risks, including violence and kidnapping.”
New Aegean Airways flight to supply solely direct path to Baghdad from EU
The airways that fly into Iraq are principally native ones from the area: Iraqi Airways is the principle service offering flights out of Baghdad Worldwide Airport (BGW), and worldwide carriers flying into Iraq embody Turkish Airways, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, and Emirates.
On Oct. 31, Greece’s Overseas Minister Giorgos Gerapetritis confirmed that the nation’s flag service Aegean Airways will quickly grow to be the one EU airline to fly straight into the Iraqi capital with an Athens-Baghdad route.
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Aegean Airways and German flag service Lufthansa already function flights into Erbil, the capital of the semiautonomous Kurdish territory within the north of the nation, however have largely held off on Baghdad over larger danger of instability.
Few different particulars about what the flights will price, how typically they are going to run, or the market they’re anticipated to serve have been shared right now.
Aegean Airways is the flag service of Greece.
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“This will substantially boost our people-to-people, economic and cultural ties”
“I think this will substantially boost our people-to-people, economic, but also cultural, ties,” Gerapetritis stated at an Oct. 31 information convention held with Iraqi Overseas Minister Fuad Hussein.
The primary flight has been scheduled to take off on Dec. 16; Hussein additionally welcomed Aegean’s choice as an vital transfer to “reflect the stability the country is experiencing.”
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After the Iraqi navy defeated the Islamic State jihadist group that attempted to grab management of the nation after the U.S. exit, the nation has seen extra stability than it has within the final twenty years.
A $764 million reconstruction of Baghdad Worldwide Airport is at the moment ongoing via a contract that the Iraqi authorities awarded to Luxembourg-based Corporacion America Airport.
Regardless of growing service from worldwide airways, the principle supply of entry into or out of Iraq stays Iraqi Airways. Based in 1945 as an extension of Iraq State Railways, it is usually the oldest airline within the Center East, regardless of being largely non-operational all through the 2 Gulf Wars.
The primary flight that restarted in the course of the Iraq Struggle in 2003 ran from Baghdad to the Jordanian capital of Amman. Efforts to restart service and strike flight offers with different international locations have additionally taken place periodically all through the 2000s, 2010s, and 2020s.
Flights to Sweden and the UK had been launched at completely different factors however finally stopped over fluctuating political relations with these nations’ governments.
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