Qantas – Asia Pacific Report https://asiapacificreport.nz Independent Asia Pacific news and analysis Mon, 23 Feb 2026 11:29:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 How a US-Israeli attack on Iran could crash UK, German, NZ and Australian economies https://asiapacificreport.nz/2026/02/23/how-a-us-israeli-attack-on-iran-could-crash-uk-german-nz-and-australian-economies/ Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:29:00 +0000 https://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=124118 COMMENTARY: By Eugene Doyle

If Israel and the US attack Iran, the cosy worlds of Europe, Australia and New Zealand could be swept up in an economic catastrophe.

Should the Iranians survive a terrifying onslaught, they have vowed to strike back in a way that could crash the global economy.  How they could quite possibly do this is the topic of this article.

The leaders of the Islamic Republic — love them or hate them — know that they face an existential threat; that the continued existence of a unified state called Iran is imperilled.

They also know that the collective West will not stand up for international law and the proscription on launching wars of aggression. Under these circumstances a state will sacrifice anything to survive, including hitherto unthinkable acts like sinking the USS Abraham Lincoln, the glory of the American war machine.

All the signs are pointing to a new Shock and Awe campaign by the United States.

The goal, as it was in the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, is a fast knock-out. Mission Accomplished in a few weeks.

War, however, seldom goes entirely to plan — the Americans never expected they would spend 20 years in Afghanistan and waste trillions of dollars to move from the Taliban regime to . . .  the Taliban regime.

Here is a selection of options open to the Iranians if they survive the initial onslaught.

Shut down all civilian flights for the duration of the conflict
Without firing a single missile, Iran can likely bring all flights into and out of the entire Gulf region to a shuddering halt. That’s 500,000 passengers per day.

More than 180 million passengers pass through Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai every year.

Simply issuing a warning that the entire Gulf region is an air combat zone will put the brakes on all major airlines, effectively severing the primary link between Europe, Asia and Australasia for as long as Iran hangs on.

Insurance companies would issue a cancel note on all policies (for airlines, passengers, airports, provisioners) for the entire region.

No airline will defy this interdiction. Would Qantas, for example, fly one of its A380s loaded with mums, dads and kids into a potential kill zone?  The Iranians could underscore the seriousness by firing a couple of missiles onto runways or using EW (electronic warfare tools) to spoof or harass planes.

Shut down all oil and LNG shipments
Iran will likely mine the Strait of Hormuz 33 km (21 miles) wide, making it instantly uninsurable for any oil or LNG tanker to move into or out of the Gulf.  Huge numbers of smart mines (that can recognise the acoustic signature of a tanker) will be deployed as well as hundreds of semi-submersible drone boats.

Spread out across the Gulf are thousands of short-range anti-ship missiles that will be virtually impossible to suppress.

With no tankers in, no tankers out from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Iraq, and Iran itself, the 21 million barrels of oil and LNG that passes through the strait every day will cease instantly.

The price shock will be greater than any previous oil spike. Smaller, out of the way places, like New Zealand could find themselves starved of diesel. According to a recent New Zealand government report our agricultural sector would crater within 90 days.

Once seeded into the Gulf, the mines could take months after the war has ended to clear.

Destroy Israel’s oil rigs and storage facilities
A high-value target for Iran would be the Leviathan and Tamar gas platforms in the Mediterranean. Iran, with saturation swarms of drones used in combination with high-velocity ballistic missiles, could likely break through the defences and devastate a pillar of the Israeli energy system.

Close the Suez Canal and the Red Sea to container ships and tankers
Iran, certainly for the moment, has the strike capability to close the Suez Canal.

Western countries have yawned with indifference and not lifted an eyebrow to support the Palestinians throughout the genocide or called out the US and Israel for violent attacks that have shredded the UN Charter.

Shutting the Canal, possibly for many months, will definitely get their attention. By severing this artery, Iran and its allies would transfer the shock wave of the war directly to the doorsteps of Western consumers and industry.

Combined, the Houthis and Iran have an arsenal of low-cost loitering munitions, anti-ship ballistic missiles and kamikaze boats that can enforce a blockade.

As with the Gulf’s airspace, simply by declaring a Maritime Exclusion Zone across the Red Sea, the Suez Canal route becomes uninsurable for the duration of the conflict, thereby forcing the re-routing of ships around South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

This adds two weeks to cargo shipments, ties up about 12 percent of global freight ships, harms modern just-in-time supply chains and spikes prices for countless products.

Attack Azerbaijan’s oil infrastructure
Very little attention has been paid to Azerbaijan and yet it could play a pivotal role in the denouement of the upcoming calamity. Azerbaijan, with Iran to the south and the Caspian Sea to the east, is a US-Israeli ally. It supplies Israel with 40 percent of its oil imports via the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline.

If Azerbaijan were to allow US or Israeli planes or militias to launch attacks from its territory, the Iranians might respond by destroying the pipeline and related oil facilities.

Destroy Qatar’s LNG facilities
After the US and EU largely cut off access to cheap Russian oil and gas, countries in Europe became heavily dependent on US and Qatari LNG.

This creates a vulnerability that the Iranians can use to devastating effect. A precision strike on Qatar’s Ras Laffan liquefaction trains (that purify, cool, and compress the gas), for example, would drop a bomb into the world’s gas market.

Iran has invested heavily in improving relations with its Arab neighbours; this would be a measure of last resort. Qatar’s Al Udeid is, however, the largest US military base in the Middle East and the country has more than 10,000 US troops based there.

Any use of force emanating from Qatar would open Pandora’s box.

Destroy Saudi and other oil facilities
Iran and Saudi Arabia have invested a lot of energy in restoring relations since the US assassinated General Qassem Soleimani in 2020 as he was reportedly en route to meet the Saudis in Baghdad to advance peace talks (ultimately successfully facilitated in 2023 by China).

Iran will hold off attacking Saudi facilities directly but will do so if there is any attempt to break Iran’s blockade or should the Saudis allow US forces to launch attacks from their territory.

Destroy the Gulf’s fertiliser storage facilities
This would also be a strategy of last resort and risk a renewal of hostility between Iran and Saudi Arabia. Desperate people, however, do desperate things.

The Kingdom is the world’s second-largest exporter of phosphate fertilisers, providing roughly 20 percent of the global supply (and approximately 63 percent of New Zealand’s urea imports).  Without necessarily knowing its origin, many Australian and New Zealand farms depend on this resource for food production.

Sink the USS Abraham Lincoln or other major ships
The US President may launch his war of aggression against Iran, for example, with a decapitation strike on the Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Who should be held accountable if the USS Abraham Lincoln — the most heavily protected vessel in human history — with up to 6000 US servicemen aboard, with a nuclear reactor on board, bristling with some 90 aircraft and hundreds of different types of missiles, was sent to the bottom of the sea by a salvo of Iranian hypersonic missiles travelling at Mach 8 (about 10,000km per hour)?

According to international law, that would be Donald J Trump, the Nobel Peace Prize aspirant.  How would Wall Street react?

Send thousands of missiles into Israel to devastate the economy
In 2025, we learnt that Iran, using its older missiles and a swarm of drones, could turn the Iron Dome into the Iron Sieve.

Have the Israelis been able to acquire sufficient air defence interceptors to stop what could be a blizzard of thousands of missiles and drones aimed at the key infrastructure of the Israeli economy?

Probably not. Will Iran be able to deploy them? Who knows.

Support from Iranian allies in the region
Will the powerful Iraqi Shia militias rise to support Iran and make life untenable for the Americans and other Western interests in Iraq? How will Ansar Allah (the Houthis) respond? Will Hezbollah risk joining the attack?

In truth, none of us know what will happen nor what the Iranians will be willing or able to do after an attack. Time and American violence will provide the answer.

Eugene Doyle is a community organiser based in Wellington, publisher of Solidarity and a contributor to Asia Pacific Report. His first demonstration was at the age of 12 against the Vietnam war.

]]> Vanuatu airport claim: ‘No one at air control’ for Virgin flight https://asiapacificreport.nz/2016/01/31/vanuatu-airport-row-no-one-at-air-control-for-virgin-flight/ Sat, 30 Jan 2016 23:06:51 +0000 http://asiapacificreport.nz/?p=9308 From Vanuatu Daily Post

By Jane Joshua and Jonas Cullwick in Port Vila

Virgin Australia, has temporarily suspended its flights to Vanuatu over runway safety concerns at Port Vila’s Bauerfield Airport.

Sources informed the Daily Post that there was “no response” from the control tower at Bauerfield when a Virgin Airlines flight bound for Australia left the airport on Monday.

In other developments in the airport safety row, the National Bank of Vanuatu has revealed it is “happy to work” with the Vanuatu government to fund the immediate runway upgrade needs up to the value of US$1 million.

Virgin offers three weekly flights between Brisbane and Port Vila, but the Sydney Morning Herald reported:

“The carrier said after a further review of the runway on Wednesday, it had decided it would only operate one last return service between Brisbane and Port Vila on Saturday to return customers to their port of origin.”

Port Vila's Bauerfield Airport ... three airlines now refuse to fly there. Image: Vanuatu Daily Post
Port Vila’s Bauerfield Airport … three airlines have now temporariky suspended flights. Image: Vanuatu Daily Post

Previously Air New Zealand had suspended its flights to Port Vila and Qantas suspended its code-sharing arrangement with Air Vanuatu over similar concerns.

These concerns may soon be eased as the National Bank of Vanuatu (NBV) has considered assisting the Vanuatu government.

Bank offer
Speaking exclusively with the Daily Post at the weekend, an executive member of the NBV, Michael Fimeri, said the bank was happy to work with the Vanuatu government to fund the immediate needs of the runway, to resurface the runway up to a price of US$1 million, assuming it could work out satisfactory terms with the government.

“The loan has a zero percent interest, subject to the terms agreed with the government,” he said.

Asked how soon this could happen, Fimeri replied: “The funds are available as of [Saturday], subject to negotiations with the government.”

He added that he understood there was a quote to fix the runway from a local company, which would happen in a “short space of time”.

“We will fund the upgrade, subject to the government agreeing,” he said.

While negotiations were yet to happen, he said from a banking perspective, the country needed the runway.

“It is an interest free loan, subject to terms agreed by the government and NBV,” he said.

“The money is available. It needs to be funded immediately.”

Benefit for Vanuatu
When asked how NBV would benefit from the loan, Fimeri replied: “NBV will benefit from the fact that Vanuatu will benefit from it. It is an interest free loan.”

On Friday, Air Vanuatu issued the following statement but did not comment on the recent suspension of flights when asked to: ”Air Vanuatu senior management, captains and compliance officers have been holding daily meetings with Civil Aviation Authority of Vanuatu (CAAV) and Airports Vanuatu Limited (AVL) and remain satisfied the condition of the runway is safe to continue jet operations at present.

“Our flight captains have the final say should the extra safety measures in place, including daily mechanical ‘sweeping’ of the runway, not meet our standards.

“This week we have had one flight delayed due to the sweeping not meeting the approval of our operating captain. We will continue to demand daily sweeping and runway inspections and will not depart if our operating crew and compliance officers are not satisfied.

“Air Vanuatu operates under a safety first policy at all times and will continue to do so. Should conditions deteriorate before the planned upgrade of the runway commences, we will review services to Port Vila”.

Meanwhile, AVL are refusing to confirm or deny an incident that allegedly took place Monday. Sources informed the Daily Post that there was no response from control tower at Bauerfield when a Virgin Airlines flight bound for Australia left the airport.

It was reported to the Daily Post by a person listening to the relevant radio frequency that when the plane was ready to leave the airport the captain repeatedly attempted to contact the control tower to request clearance for departure, but there was no response.

Prolonged silence
After a prolonged silence, the plane took off without incident following communication by the captain with the pilots of other aircraft in the vicinity. One of them considered the incident more amusing than not, jokingly told the captain of the aircraft “Welcome to the Pacific!”

Sources confirmed the incident and said similar situations had occurred in the past, especially when there was only one person at the control tower and had to use the restroom.

One local pilot said such incidents often happened with local flights, but this was the first he had come across it with an international flight.

“There was really no drama only an inconvenience to the Boeing captain who after waiting for five minutes decided to take off. But if there was a major incident the captain would have filed an Incident Report, As it is, there was really no issue,” he added.

AVL’s management responded to a request from the Daily Post for a comment saying they had nothing to say on the matter as they were not aware of such an incident.

It is not known whether such an occurrence would have contributed to Virgin’s decision to suspend its service to Port Vila.

AVL also said they could not comment on reports that a manager, air traffic, Lindsay Taylor, who was said to have spent over 20 years in the control tower of Bauerfield Airport, was given only four days’ notice before having his services terminated recently.

No comment
When the Daily Post contacted AVL for a comment, it was told that management could not comment on the report. No reasons were given.

These situations could not have come at a worse time for Vanuatu and Bauerfield when the airport was in the spotlight over concerns about safety issues.

These longstanding concerns about the condition of the runway to safely handle Boeing 737 aircraft have led Air New Zealand to suspend its flights into Bauerfield.

Last weekend, the Director of Civil Aviation Authority of Vanuatu (CAAV), Joseph Niel, directed AVL to act on measures required by airline operators to ensure jet operations could continue safely at Bauerfield airport.

Air Vanuatu also said several extra precautions were now in place until permanent repair at the aerodrome begins.

The safety measures imposed by Air Vanuatu require daily “sweeping” of the runway plus regular inspections prior to and after take-off; new obstacle and runway surveys and 200m of runway to be marked at the end of runway 11 for urgent repair.

Jonas Cullwick, a former general manager of Vanuatu Broadcasting and Television Corporation (VBTC), is now a senior journalist with the Daily Post.

Daily Post in editorial clash with Vanuatu government over airport safety

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