Qatar Airways Flights Remain Grounded at SFO Amid Middle East Airspace Closures

A large Qatar Airways jet has been sitting on a remote apron at San Francisco International Airport since Feb. 28, visible to arriving passengers but going nowhere. The aircraft, reported by local outlets as an Airbus A350-1000 capable of flying the 15-hour nonstop route to Doha, remained grounded as of March 10 with no announced plans to move it. SFO spokesperson Doug Yakel confirmed the airline is paying to park it at the airport.

The suspension traces to Feb. 28, when Qatari authorities closed the country's airspace following missile and air strikes by the United States and Israel against Iran. Attacks on Hamad International Airport in Doha compounded the disruption, forcing Qatar Airways to cancel flights globally and strand aircraft at airports across North America. The Doha route has since disappeared from departure boards at SFO.

Qatar Airways announced it would operate a limited number of repatriation flights, but explicitly excluded North America from those operations. A spokesperson made clear in an email that even those limited flights carried no broader meaning: "These flights do not constitute a confirmation of resumption of scheduled commercial operations. The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew remain our highest priority during this period of disruption. We sincerely apologise for the inconvenience caused by the current situation, which is beyond our control, and thank our passengers for their patience and understanding."

Most scheduled services remain suspended until the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority declares it safe to reopen Qatari airspace, and it remains unclear when that determination will come.

The situation at SFO is one piece of a much larger grounding. Across 13 North American airports, 33 widebody jets from Gulf and Middle Eastern carriers are stranded, according to aviation tracking outlet Simple Flying, which compiled registration-level data on the affected aircraft. The so-called Big Three Gulf carriers, Emirates, Etihad, and Qatar Airways, account for most of the grounded planes. El Al has four jets awaiting departure clearance, Saudia has one, and Qatar Airways subsidiaries Qatar Executive and Qatar Cargo have additional aircraft unable to return to the Middle East. Simple Flying's list identifies a Qatar Executive Gulfstream G700, registration A7-CHB, specifically at SFO, though local reporting from the San Mateo Daily Journal and Local News Matters identified the parked aircraft as an Airbus A350-1000. The discrepancy has not been reconciled in available reporting, and the exact type and registration of the jet on the remote apron warrants verification with SFO operations.

Aviation analytics firms cited by The Traveler estimate tens of thousands of flights have been disrupted across the Middle East and connecting regions since the latest phase of the conflict began. As one of the world's largest long-haul carriers by international destinations, Qatar Airways' partial shutdown has removed significant capacity from already strained global networks.

Not all Gulf service from SFO remains frozen. Emirates restarted flights last week from SFO to its hub in Dubai, roughly 280 miles from Doha and about the same distance as San Francisco to Santa Barbara. Qatar Airways has no such restart in sight, with resumption of scheduled commercial operations contingent entirely on a declaration from the Qatar Civil Aviation Authority that has yet to arrive.