Examples of airports that have substantially declined in number of flights available in recent years

[Tooting Carmen]

Anchorage, Alaska, USA. During the Cold War, Western European and North American airlines flying to Asia couldn't use Soviet or Chinese airspace, so would often stopover here instead. What's more, the first generation of jets and widebody airlines did not have the range to fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean. Now that neither issue applies, the airport has become increasingly isolated.

Karachi, Pakistan. Until the 1990's, many airlines flying between Europe and SE Asia/Oceania would stopover here. However, since then there has been growing political instability in Pakistan, with Karachi itself having become especially dangerous, plus also the emergence of Gulf Arab cities as prominent airports and intermediate stops between Europe and SE Asia/Oceania (especially Dubai), which have combined to lead many airlines to reduce if not wholly eliminate service to this airport.

San Juan, Puerto Rico. Quite a few European and Latin American airlines used to fly here. However, for whatever reason, they have found demand to be insufficient and passengers are generally now expected to fly via the mainland US instead.

Caracas, Venezuela. Where to begin? Frequent crime at the airport itself, frequent power outages, political and economic instability, the failure to pay airlines millions of dollars owed to them, poor relations with the US in particular - all these factors under Chavez and especially Maduro have seen several airlines abandon this once-thriving airport in recent years.

[The Lawspeaker]

Anchorage, Alaska, USA. During the Cold War, European and North American airlines flying to Asia couldn't use Soviet or Chinese airspace, so would often stopover here instead. What's more, the first generation of jets and widebody airlines did not have the range to fly non-stop across the Pacific Ocean, so they'd use this airport instead. Now that neither issue applies, the airport has become increasingly isolated.

Makes me wonder whether it could be used again if, for some reason, it would be better to avoid Russian or Chinese airspace ? The current generation of widebody planes has the range but it might still be useful.

[Tooting Carmen]

N.B. I have purposefully excluded those airports that are in war zones such as Libya, Syria and Yemen. (Political instability and civil unrest, as experienced by Pakistan and Venezuela, are not the same thing as wholesale civil war).

[Tooting Carmen]

Makes me wonder whether it could be used again if, for some reason, it would be better to avoid Russian or Chinese airspace ? The current generation of widebody planes has the range but it might still be useful.

Maybe for flying to Japan and Korea, but not really elsewhere in Asia.

[The Lawspeaker]

Maybe for flying to Japan and Korea, but not really elsewhere in Asia.

I actually fly to Asia myself and if I fly Emirates or Turkish, I bypass China and Russia entirely so it is possible and was done during the Cold War. The route then was via the Med, Middle East, Arab Sea, India and beyond.