Rob Liddle, a member of BBC staff who was stranded in Doha en route to Dhaka in Bangladesh, said late on Monday that hundreds of stranded passengers were trying to get food or bedding in the airport lounge while they waited to hear when flights would resume.
There was fear when the missiles were reported to be coming in, he said. But following that, the atmosphere had been “calm”.
Aviation consultant Tim Atkinson said situations like this “cause enormous disruption, not just to flights,” he said.
“There is a fundamental interconnected nature of air travel. So when disruption begins, it spreads almost like wildfire.”
Delays and cancellations are likely to cause significant disruption across and beyond the region, according to aviation expert John Strickland.
“Delays to flights because of following longer routings means more cost to the airlines because they are burning more fuel.” Mr Strickland said.
“It can lead to an airline saying an aircraft is not available when it should be, and in particular crew, because crew are limited by legal rest requirements.”
There is also the question of safety, said Mr Strickland. Many governments have advised against travel to parts of the region, which could force some travellers to cancel their flights.
Decisions on whether to fly to certain destinations could be made on a “day-by-day basis” he said.
According to data from aviation risk consultancy Osprey Flight Solutions, six commercial aircraft have been shot down unintentionally, with three near-misses, since 2001.
Arguably the best known incident was in 2014, when Russian-backed forces in Ukraine shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing all 298 people on board.
Russian and Ukrainian airspace has already been closed to most airlines due to the conflict there, diverting even more flights to the Middle East, where they were now being “squeezed” into even smaller spaces, he added.
The conflict in the Middle East has already led to the closure of huge swathes of crucial airspace.
Since Israel launched its offensive, commercial flights have avoided flying over Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.
Roughly 1,400 flights pass through this key corridor between Asia and Europe – but they now either have to fly north over Turkey or south over Saudi Arabia.
