All Iranian airlines to be shut out worldwide from Wednesday: what it means here

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that from 23 September every Iranian commercial airline will be shut out of operations around the world. The mechanism is not an aviation rule. It is secondary sanctions: any foreign airport that refuels an Iranian aircraft, gives it landing facilities or sells its tickets risks losing access to dollar transactions and the US banking system.

"On September 23, all the Iranian airlines will be shut down around the world," Bessent said, adding that Washington had identified the "enablers" and that the pressure would be "like never before". He would not say whether the campaign runs a week, a month or six months.

The step is part of what the Treasury calls Operation Economic Fury, in the seventh month of the war that began in February 2026 after US and Israeli strikes on Iran.

What it means for Pakistani travellers

The direct exposure is zaireen. Pilgrim traffic to Mashhad and Qom moves either on Iranian carriers out of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, or overland through the Taftan border in Balochistan. If banks and ground handlers stop touching Iranian aircraft from Wednesday, the air option closes and the land route through Quetta and Taftan is what is left, which means a two to three day road journey each way and convoy timings set by the Levies.

Anyone holding a booking on an Iranian carrier this week should check with the airline office before travelling to the airport, and should expect refunds to be slow given that the same sanctions squeeze the airlines' ability to move money.

The part that reaches everyone's pocket

Brent was around $101 a barrel on Monday, an eleven day low, and rose again on Tuesday on the Iran headlines. Pakistan's petrol price is set fortnightly off the Arab Gulf import price and the exchange rate, so anything that widens the Gulf risk premium in the last week of September feeds straight into the 1 October notification.

Petrol is already at Rs 393.75 a litre after Monday's Rs 4.61 increase. The Strait of Hormuz, where two tankers were hit on Monday, carries the LNG and the crude that Pakistan buys.

Track the numbers on the petrol price page and work out your own monthly bill with the fuel cost calculator.