German airline Lufthansa cancelled a connecting flight from Cyprus to Tel Aviv on Wednesday evening for safety reasons.
According to a company spokesperson, the A321 aircraft had already landed at Larnaca airport from Munich as planned to fly to Israel with a new crew.
However, that part of the flight was cancelled because Iran announced in the early hours of Thursday that it would temporarily close its airspace. Lufthansa therefore did not consider the safety of the flights to Tel Aviv to be guaranteed.
Another flight, operated by subsidiary Austrian, had to divert to Sofia.
The security situation in the Middle East is even more tense than it already was, after the assassination of two major opponents of Israel. One of the attacks, which Iran blames on Israel, took place in the Iranian capital Tehran. The Iranian leadership is threatening retaliation.
The Lufthansa spokesman explained that there are currently no more restrictions on flight operations to Tel Aviv. After the cancellation of the connecting flight from Cyprus to Israel, 23 of the 190 passengers did not want to fly back to Munich and chose to remain on the Mediterranean island.
Lufthansa has introduced stopovers in Cyprus to prevent crews from spending the night in an area full of conflict and tension.
