Royal Jordanian (RJ, Amman Queen Alia), flydubai (FZ, Dubai International), and Kuwait Airways (KU, Kuwait) have all suspended their respective services to Najaf in central Iraq due to the unrest and security situation in the city.

flydubai has said in a statement that its daily flights from Dubai International will remain suspended at least through July 22, 2018, while Royal Jordanian has suspended its 4x weekly service out of Amman Queen Alia "until further notice". Kuwait Airways, which flies to Najaf 2x weekly out of Kuwait, has also stopped the operations until further notice.

Iraqi News has also reported that IranAir (IR, Tehran Mehrabad) diverted its flights from Najaf to Baghdad.

Najaf has been engulfed in mass protests which at times turned violent for the last few days. The demonstrations against corruption, alleged vote-rigging in May parliamentary elections, and general discontent with the politics in Iraq have started in Iraq's southernmost port and oil industry centre Basrah but have since spread to the centre of the country. At times, the protesters have also stormed Najaf airport itself, disrupting the operations.

Royal Jordanian has said in its statement that Najaf is already the ninth city to which it has been forced to either suspend flights or drop them altogether due to the security situation. The list also includes Mosul in Iraq, Damascus and Aleppo in Syria, Tripoli International, Benghazi, and Misurata in Libya, Aden and Sana in Yemen.

According to the ch-aviation capacity module, Najaf currently sees moderate traffic with 194 scheduled departures per week. The largest carrier at the airport is Iraqi Airways (IA, Baghdad) with 60 weekly departures, while the most popular destinations are Tehran Imam Khomeini and Mashad in Iran.