Air France suspends “until further notice” all flights over the Red Sea area by its planes

“This decision follows the suspicion of observation by a crew of a luminous object at high altitude in the Sudan area,” says the airline.

The airline Air France announced on Sunday November 3 that it was suspending “until further notice, overflight of the Red Sea area”which extends from eastern Africa to the Arabian Peninsula. “This decision follows the suspicion of observation by a crew of a luminous object at high altitude in the Sudan area”wrote the group on X, in response to rumors suggesting a missile fired from Sudan.

Due to this suspension, “the itinerary of some of its flights has been changed”continues Air France. “Depending on their location, certain aircraft were able to turn around and return to land at their departure airport, such as flight AF934 linking Paris to Antananarivo”capital of Madagascar. Data displayed for this flight on the specialist site FlightRadar24 shows that the Air France Boeing 777 turned around off the Egyptian coast around 2 p.m. Paris time on Sunday before landing at Paris airport Charles-de-Gaulle in the early evening.

At the beginning of October, an Air France plane was over Iraq when Iran fired its first missiles towards Israel on October 1, according to the LCI channel. Contacted by franceinfo, the airline confirmed that “this flight, linking Paris Charles-de-Gaulle to Dubai, was flying over southern Iraq when the Iranian attack began, around 4:45 p.m. universal time.”