TEHRAN: Flying out of Iran has long required patience in the face of restrictions and delays, but new US sanctions have grounded flights at short notice and left war-weary travellers feeling trapped as they try to leave the country.
Among those scrambling for a way out is Mitra, a 49-year-old woman who had planned to travel to Paris via Istanbul along with her brother, but who now faces a long journey by road to get to Turkey.
"Some airlines are still selling tickets, but they keep getting cancelled. It honestly makes us feel completely trapped," she told an AFP journalist in Paris, using a pseudonym for fear of retribution by authorities.
"When we were told that flights had been suspended, we decided to travel to Istanbul by land instead."
Mitra described paying around $75 to book a flight to the Iranian city of Tabriz, from where she will travel by road for several hours to reach the border.
In Van in Turkey, they will stay at a hotel, because the wait at the border can be long and chaotic.
"At this point, we're just hoping that we can actually get out. They might even close the land border," she fears.
For decades, Iranians have lived under foreign sanctions and restrictions by their country's authorities on their personal freedoms.
The US added to their woes last week by tightening restrictions on Iran's aviation industry, in a bid to choke its economy in the Middle East war.
Passengers who booked tickets out of Iran to Middle Eastern destinations like the United Arab Emirates, Iraq, Oman and Turkey have faced short-notice cancellations as the latest sanctions bite.
Barriers
An AFP journalist at Tehran's international airport described the chaos after a recent flight cancellation to Dubai, with travellers crowding the ticket counter for answers from staff and others scrambling to retrieve their luggage.
Nobody at the airport seemed certain which flight would take off next, or if they would be able to at all, said the journalist.
The UAE, Georgia and Azerbaijan have officially confirmed suspending flights, and a travel agent in Tehran told AFP that flights to Baghdad, Muscat and Qatar were also halted.
Travel barriers have been a problem for Iranians since well before the war in the Middle East, with arduous visa processes and expensive tickets an ever-present inconvenience.
The latest American sanctions, announced by US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent last week, have added yet another layer of hurdles for Iranian tourists.
Demand 'so high'
Even after getting through security and passport control, flight permissions have been withdrawn with less than an hour until take-off, according to passengers.
One flight was even forced to turn around mid-air last week as it made its way to the Tajik capital of Dushanbe when Turkmenistan refused to allow it to cross its airspace, Iranian authorities said.
After the Dubai cancellation, the attention of passengers at Tehran's Imam Khomeini International Airport quickly turned to one location that still had flights open: Turkey.
Turkey, along with Oman, has halted incoming flights from private carrier Mahan Air, according to Bessent.
But some like Shirin, 31, were lucky and made it out on a precious flight to Istanbul. "This situation is extremely strange and worrying because there are far fewer flights than before, and there is a high chance of cancellations," she told AFP from Istanbul, where she was waiting to board another flight to Toronto.
"There are also no available seats because demand is so high."
She said that she "had no other choice" but to fly, unlike those taking overland routes out of Iran, because of a health issue.
Despite the fresh pressure, Iran's aviation sector has already been a target of sanctions for years, and it remains to be seen which other countries will comply. Routes remain available to Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Russia, Malaysia and Thailand.
But as seats out of Iran quickly fill up, others have been left stranded and describe finding other solutions in the face of the difficulties.
Mitra and her brother's journey will now see them spend hours on the road and in a hotel, and hundreds of dollars they had not initially planned for, just to get to Paris.
"It's hard to accept that getting somewhere that should be a simple flight has turned into such a long and difficult journey," she said.
