Hate to inform you, but they actually travel up the Persian Gulf, and by the time they reach land they are high above the clouds. Plus they have regional flights here anyway 🙂
It would be a massive waste of fuel and profit for Etihad, the prices would increase massively. I think you may be confused into what Gulf of water you’re looking at.
Well yeah more content and more quality. I love the new androids when they take screenshots. I have the S9 and the screenshots are always so beautiful.
But, the flight plan for routes to Dubai from London does not actually go all the way below Saudi Arabia. While there are lots of conflicts there, no plane goes below the country to get to a city North(east) of it when flying in from London. Qatar Airways though, which flies to Doha, has to avoid that airspace as well as a couple other countries’ airspace, but it still does not go all the way below Saudi Arabia. I suggest you look at FlightAware.Com or FlightRadar24 to see the real flight route for these flights!
I’ve flown to and from Dubai 4 times now and I can say that the route does not go around Saudi Arabia. As shown above the flight plan is pretty much a direct route.
It looks like you used airports as your waypoints. You might want to look at some flight plan tutorials so you can make more detailed and more realistic flight plans.