Is Syria's Airspace Open? EASA's Revised Syria Bulletin (CZIB-2017-03R20) and the Damascus FIR Explained

Syria has been on EASA's conflict-zone list since March 2017, which makes its bulletin one of the oldest still active. It is also one of the most frequently revised. On 1 October 2026 the agency published revision 20 of CZIB-2017-03, extended its validity to 30 November 2026 and, unusually, rewrote the risk description rather than just rolling the date forward. The new text is more detailed than most bulletins and says something that many travellers will find surprising: parts of Syrian airspace are, in EASA's assessment, lower risk at high altitude than they were.

This post explains what the revised bulletin says in plain language, which part of the Damascus FIR EU operators are told not to enter at all, what the FL260 floor means, why the bulletin mentions daylight, and what all of it means for passengers whose routes pass over or near Syria. Everything factual is taken from the bulletin text on EASA's conflict-zone page; where we interpret, we say so.

What the bulletin covers

The affected airspace is the whole Damascus Flight Information Region, ICAO code OSTT, at all altitudes and flight levels. If you are not sure what a FIR is or why bulletins are written in terms of them, the [explainer on what a flight information region is](/blog/what-is-a-flight-information-region-fir-explained) covers the basics; the short version is that OSTT is the block of airspace Syria is responsible for, which covers the country and a little beyond.

As with every CZIB, the bulletin applies to EASA operators, meaning airlines regulated under EU air-operations rules, and to third-country operators flying to, from or within the EU under an EASA authorisation. It is advisory in form, but EU airlines treat it as binding in practice, and many non-EU carriers follow it because their insurers and their own risk teams read the same text. If you want the broader context for how these bulletins work, the [guide to EASA's Middle East conflict-zone bulletins](/blog/easa-conflict-zone-bulletins-middle-east-explained) explains the system.

The three recommendations, in plain language

The bulletin's recommendations are unusually specific. Paraphrased:

• Do not fly at any altitude west of a line connecting the navigation points ZELAF, BASEM, LOTAX and LATEB, including the airway segments that form that boundary. This is a hard no-go area in the western part of the FIR.
• Do not fly below FL260 (roughly 26,000 feet) anywhere else in the Damascus FIR.
• At and above FL260 in the remainder of the FIR, exercise caution and take the potential risks into account; in other words, overflight is possible but must be risk-assessed.
• Consider scheduling operations during daylight hours as an additional mitigation.
• Keep an up-to-date risk assessment and contingency plan, be prepared for short-notice instructions from state authorities, and follow all aeronautical publications and the EU's conflict-zone information-sharing platform.

Why the west of the FIR is off-limits

The bulletin is explicit about where the risk sits. Israeli military strikes against targets in Syria remain recurrent, and they are concentrated in the south-west of the country. Iranian missile and drone transits towards Israel, and towards US and Jordanian targets, remain recurrent too; EASA assesses their direct impact on civil overflights as generally limited because of the trajectories involved, but adds that interceptions of those missiles may create high risk to civil aviation, particularly in south-western Syrian airspace, and that debris from interceptions can fall on other parts of the FIR.

The line of navigation points in the first recommendation is EASA's way of drawing that south-western risk area on the chart. Everything west of it, which is the side of the country towards Lebanon, Israel and the Mediterranean, is excluded at every altitude. This is the part of the bulletin that changes least between revisions: the no-go area in the west has been the core of the Syria bulletin for years, and the revision keeps it.

Why FL260 is the floor everywhere else

Below about 26,000 feet, the bulletin says violent non-state actors retain capabilities including drones, rockets and man-portable air-defence systems (MANPADS), creating risks primarily below FL260. Those weapons cannot reach an airliner in the cruise, which is why the floor exists: an aircraft transiting at FL340 is above the envelope of anything a non-state group is assessed to have, while an aircraft climbing out of or descending into a Syrian airport is not. In practice the floor means there are no EU-operated flights to Syrian airports under this bulletin, because you cannot land without going below FL260.

If you have read our post on [how airlines plan routes around conflict zones](/blog/how-airlines-plan-flight-routes-around-conflict-zones), this is the same logic that produced the altitude floors over eastern Ukraine before 2014 and over several other regions since: the bulletin distinguishes between the risk to an overflight and the risk to a flight that has to climb or descend.

The part that is new: lower risk at altitude

The revised description contains two sentences that were not in earlier versions and that explain why the bulletin now allows cautious high-altitude overflight outside the western area. The first is that the overall degradation of Syria's long-range air-defence network has reduced the risk of misidentification and unintended engagement of civil aircraft. The second is that air-defence systems associated with other state actors are assessed as providing localised protection of specific areas and are not currently considered to have a significant direct impact on civil overflights.

This is EASA's assessment, stated carefully, and it comes with an equally careful caveat: regional escalation in the Middle East may result in missile and drone activity, interceptions and falling debris that temporarily increase risk, including at higher flight levels. The agency also notes that while aeronautical information from Syria has improved, fragmented control of the airspace and limited coordination still make deconfliction and timely information difficult. So the picture is: lower baseline risk at altitude than in the past, but a baseline that can jump without much warning.

Why the bulletin mentions daylight

One line in the description is easy to miss but worth understanding: the available data indicate that kinetic and associated air-defence activity is concentrated predominantly during the hours of darkness. That is why the recommendations include scheduling operations during daylight as an additional mitigation. For passengers this has a practical implication. An airline that overflies eastern Syria is more likely to do so on daytime rotations, and a night-time flight that would otherwise take that track may be routed further east over Iraq or south over Jordan and Saudi Arabia instead. Routing decisions like this are made per flight, not per airline, which is one reason the same flight number can take different tracks on different days.

Where Syria sits in the wider map

The Syria revision came the day after a wave of 30 September revisions to EASA's other Middle East bulletins. The Iran, Iraq and Lebanon bulletins were each revised to run until 16 November 2026, the Persian Gulf and Gulf of Oman bulletin likewise, the Jordan bulletin until 16 October, and a [new bulletin for Saudi Arabia's Jeddah FIR](/blog/easa-saudi-arabia-airspace-bulletin-czib-2026-09-jeddah-fir) was issued on the same day. Taken together, the active bulletins now form a near-continuous band from the Mediterranean to the Gulf, with different rules in each block.

For a Europe-to-Asia flight, the usable options remain broadly what they have been since the summer: the northern arc over the Caucasus and Central Asia, the central route through Iraq and the Gulf where the respective bulletins allow, and the southern corridor over Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Eastern Syria at high altitude is a possible link between Turkey and Iraq for some of those routings, which is why the Syria bulletin matters to passengers who never see the word Damascus on their itinerary. The post on [alternative routes avoiding Middle East airspace](/blog/alternative-flight-routes-avoiding-middle-east-airspace) sets out those corridors in more detail, the [northern arc post](/blog/northern-arc-flight-routes-europe-asia-caucasus-central-asia) covers the Caucasus option, and the [Iran airspace status post](/blog/iran-airspace-open-or-closed-october-2026-update) covers the block to the east.

What this means for your flight

If you are flying with an EU airline, your flight will not land in Syria, will not fly below FL260 over it, and will not cross the western no-go area at any altitude. It may cross eastern Syria at cruise altitude, most likely in daylight, if the airline's own risk assessment agrees with EASA's. Airlines from outside the EU make their own decisions, and several that fly between Europe and the Gulf or South Asia do use Syrian airspace at altitude; others avoid it entirely. If that matters to you, the tool on this site shows which FIRs a given route crosses and flags the ones with an active bulletin, and the guide on [how to check whether your flight avoids conflict zones](/blog/how-to-check-if-your-flight-avoids-conflict-zones) explains how to read the result.

The bulletin is valid until 30 November 2026 unless reviewed earlier. Given how often this one has been revised, treat that date as the next scheduled look rather than a promise that nothing will change before then.

Quick answers

Is Syria's airspace open? Formally, yes: the Damascus FIR is open and Syria publishes aeronautical information for it. EASA's bulletin does not close it; it tells EU operators where and how low they may not fly.

Can you fly over Syria? EU operators may overfly the eastern part of the FIR at or above FL260 with a risk assessment in place, and may not enter the western area at all. Non-EU airlines decide for themselves.

Are there flights to Damascus from the EU? Not under this bulletin, because the FL260 floor rules out landing.

When is the next change due? The bulletin expires on 30 November 2026 unless reviewed earlier. New revisions appear on EASA's conflict-zone advisories page.