LONDON: Britain’s defense minister John Healey is headed to Cyprus, a defense source told AFP, after a drone strike on a UK air base on the Mediterranean island.
Healey was due to arrive later Thursday, the source said.
The visit comes after the runway of the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Akrotiri came under attack by an Iranian-made unmanned drone on Monday.
Starmer said Tuesday the UK was sending “helicopters with counter drone capabilities” and a warship, HMS Dragon, to Cyprus as Britain continued “defensive operations” in the region.
HMS Dragon is one of the Royal Navy’s six Type 45 air defense destroyers.
It is fitted with a Sea Viper missile system able to launch eight missiles in under 10 seconds and guide up to 16 missiles simultaneously, Britain’s defense ministry said.
The helicopters are Wildcat helicopters equipped with Martlet missiles that can destroy drones.
On Wednesday, Cyprus’s High Commissioner to the UK Dr. Kyriacos Kouros, said Cypriots were “disappointed” at the level of information-sharing with residents after RAF Akrotiri was hit and further drones intercepted.
“Let’s say the people are disappointed, the people are scared, the people could expect more,” he told the BBC’s Newsnight program.
Starmer initially refused to have any role in the US-Israeli war with Iran but later agreed to a US request to use two British military bases for a “specific and limited defensive purpose.”
Those bases are in Gloucestershire, western England, and the UK-US Diego Garcia base in the Indian Ocean.
Starmer has insisted that the Akrotiri base is not being used by US bombers.
Monday’s drone strike there caused minimal damage and no casualties, said British officials.
Service personnel’s families have been moved away from the base as a precaution.
UK defense minister heads to Cyprus amid Middle East war
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UK defense minister heads to Cyprus amid Middle East war
- The visit comes after the runway of the Royal Air Force (RAF) base at Akrotiri came under attack by an Iranian-made unmanned drone
Airlines hike ticket prices as war against Iran propels fuel costs
- Conflict deals double blow to Indian airlines already hit by Pakistan airspace ban
CANBERRA, NEW DELHI: Australia’s Qantas Airways, Scandinavia’s SAS and Air New Zealand announced airfare hikes on Tuesday, blaming an abrupt spike in the cost of fuel caused by the Middle East conflict.
Jet fuel prices, which were around $85 to $90 per barrel before US-Israeli strikes on Iran, have soared to between $150 and $200 per barrel in recent days, New Zealand’s flag carrier said as it suspended its financial outlook for 2026 due to uncertainty over the conflict. The war, which disrupted shipping via the world’s most vital oil export route, has sent oil prices surging, upending global travel, pushing airline tickets on some routes sky-high, and sparking fears of a deep travel slump that could lead to widespread grounding of planes.
FASTFACT
Flight disruptions due to the Middle East conflict add to problems at IndiGo whose CEO Pieter Elbers stepped down on Tuesday.
“Increases of this magnitude make it necessary to react in order to maintain stable and reliable operations,” an SAS spokesperson said in a statement, adding it had implemented a “temporary price adjustment.”
The largest Scandinavian airline said last year it had temporarily adjusted its fuel hedging policy due to uncertain market conditions and that it had no fuel consumption hedged for the following 12 months. Several Asian and European airlines, including Lufthansa and Ryanair, have oil hedging in place, securing a part of their fuel supplies at fixed prices. Finnair, which had hedged over 80 percent of its first quarter fuel purchases, warned, however, that even the availability of fuel could be at risk if the conflict dragged on.
Qantas said in addition to increasing international fares, it was exploring redeploying capacity to Europe as airlines and passengers seek to evade disruptions in the Middle East
Airspace restrictions in the Middle East have dealt another blow to Indian airlines, which count the region as a corridor for flights to Europe and the US since Pakistan banned Indian carriers from its airspace last year.
As war in the Middle East forces flight rescheduling and re-routing, Indian airlines have limited options because they can’t fly over Pakistan either.
The country’s biggest international carriers Air India and IndiGo did not operate 64 percent of their 1,230 scheduled flights to the Middle East, Europe and North America in the last 10 days, Cirium data shows.
“It is a double whammy for Indian airlines which fly international routes,” said Amit Mittal, an independent aviation expert.
Pakistan has banned Indian carriers from its airspace since last April following military tensions between the two neighbors.
