Niger coup leaders on Monday closed its airspace citing the threat of military intervention.
According to the BBC, ECOWAS had warned it could use force if President Mohamed Bazoum was not reinstated by 23:00 GMT on Sunday.
Bazoum is currently under detention, and the country now has a self-proclaimed leader General Abdourahmane Tchiani, commander of the presidential guard.
When airspace is closed it means aircraft are banned from flying over or entering certain areas, for certain reasons explained by territory leaders.
This could be due to safety concerns and to protect a country's assets.
Additionally, closure of the airspace would be in the case of traffic air control radar at various airports, to stop certain aircraft from getting into a certain airport or country.
Closure due to traffic air control is normally temporal.
The closure of airspaces, if it is in case of security concerns, affects travel, imports, and exports to other countries, and businesses are travels to and from the closed airspaces are also affected, as reopening is always unknown until issues are maintained.
With Niger's airspace closure, reports indicate that most flights from Southern Africa to Europe and vice versa have been forced to use the longest routes.
According to the Independent, British Airways passengers from Johannesburg to London Heathrow went on a 10-hour long flight to no defined destination.
It also reports that other flights have been rerouted, adding slightly over an hour of flying and more than 1000km coverage.
"British Airways flight BA56 from Johannesburg flew as far as Chad before turning back to its starting point. It was being operated by an Airbus A380 'SuperJumbo', with space for nearly 500 passengers," Independent reported.
A flight scheduled from Nairobi to the UK also returned back to the capital two hours after take-off following the immediate Niger's airspace closure.
According to the FlightAware tracker, it shows the aeroplane left Nairobi at 11:10 pm, manoeuvred as it was searching for landing space and later landed in Nairobi at 5:17 am.
