Airspace restrictions – All about conflict and risk zones

Around the world you find restrictions concerning the airspace in certain areas. Explore the limitations and learn where to find current information in our guide.

Flight paths used by different airlines can be affected by a number of different reasons, the reason with the highest impact being different kinds of airspace bans or restrictions. This causes flight time and distance to increase, and can also vary depending on which airline you are flying with.

flight paths airspace restrictions — At Flightpaths.com we map out the actual flight path for every airline operating each route. Sometimes the lines are dotted on parts of the route – this means that we haven’t accessed the exact tracking in this area.

To make it more understandable why an airline might avoid or choose certain airspaces when flying a route, we highlight specific conflict areas and airspace restrictions in our data and on our maps using different colors – as displayed below.

airspace restrictions conflict and risk zones — The restricted areas are marked red, orange or yellow depending on the risk level. Note that even if entire countries are marked in our maps, the restrictions sometimes just affect parts of the country.

For more information about what the different colors mean and why these areas are restricted, check out the list of sources below.

List of sources

Wikipedia – List of airlines banned in the European Union.
Safeairspace.net – Conflict Zone & Risk Database. Aggregates warnings and information from authorities and organizations.
Various government bodies and aviation agencies like EASA.