When war broke out in the Middle East last week, it plunged the travel industry into the kind of chaos not seen since the pandemic. Thousands of flights to or from the Gulf have been canceled; Dubai and Abu Dhabi’s airports sustained damage from Iranian weaponry. Since these countries have all staked their future on cheap and efficient connections that have knitted the U.S. East Coast and Europe to Asia and Australia for years, this is a big deal. The travel industry—and therefore the flow of people and capital—is about to reconfigure.
