Airports in Baghdad, Iraq, and Muscat, Oman, stopped accepting flights by Iranian carriers from midnight on Wednesday, 23 September 2026, when United States sanctions on Iran’s aviation sector took effect. The information comes from Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, cited by Al Jazeera and Agence France-Presse (AFP). Iraq’s government ordered its civil aviation authority to suspend Iranian flights to Baghdad, according to two sources heard by Reuters, and is considering rerouting those services to Najaf, a pilgrimage destination. Iran’s Civil Aviation Organization is negotiating with Oman and says other international flights, including those to Istanbul, are operating as scheduled, according to the ISNA agency.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said on Monday, 21 September, that Iranian airlines would be barred from operating worldwide from 23 September under the threat of secondary sanctions on service providers: “you cannot provide them with fuel, you cannot provide them with landing services, you cannot sell them tickets, or you will be knocked out of the dollar system,” he told CNBC. Iran has 27 airlines, most of them domestic, and international routes are concentrated in Iran Air and Mahan Air. Analysts told Al Jazeera that Washington has no authority to close other countries’ airspace, and that cutting off fuel and ground handling achieves an equivalent effect.