Middle Eastern airlines have started bringing home stranded travellers as a three-day shutdown across some of the world’s busiest aviation hubs slowly eased on Tuesday, even as the war triggered by US–Israeli strikes on Iran continued to upend global air travel.
Emirates restarted a limited number of flights from Dubai International Airport to destinations including London Heathrow, Manchester, Paris, Frankfurt and Jeddah after suspending almost all operations when regional airspace closed over the weekend.
The carrier is prioritising passengers already in the emirate and said returning aircraft will carry travellers bound for Dubai but will not yet take connecting traffic, underscoring how far normal hub operations remain.
Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, has also operated a handful of flights since Monday, including the first passenger service to land in the UK late on Monday evening.
The airline said its main schedule remains suspended at least until Wednesday, with only “repositioning, cargo and repatriation flights” running in coordination with UAE authorities and subject to strict safety approvals.
By contrast, Qatar Airways said on Tuesday its flights remain grounded because Qatari airspace is still closed following Iran’s retaliatory missile and drone attacks, leaving Doha’s Hamad International Airport effectively shut as a connecting hub.
Mass cancellations, stranded passengers
The gradual restart follows one of the worst disruptions to global aviation since the pandemic.
Flight‑tracking and analytics firms estimate more than 10,000 flights have been cancelled since strikes began, with airspace closures stretching across Iran, Israel, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Syria and the UAE, and partial restrictions in Saudi Arabia.
Aviation analytics company Cirium says roughly 90,000 passengers typically pass through Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi each day on Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad alone, and that at least 1 million travellers worldwide have now been affected.
Governments are under growing pressure to extract their citizens from the region, but many have yet to launch large‑scale flights because of ongoing closures and the risk of further strikes.
The US ambassador to Israel has warned Americans that options to leave are “very limited”, suggesting some may need to travel overland to Egypt, while the embassy is not currently in a position to organise direct evacuations.
France is preparing chartered evacuation flights for the most vulnerable among its roughly 400,000 citizens in the Middle East, its foreign minister has said, while Italy has dispatched teams of Carabinieri police and diplomats to Oman and the Gulf to help move about 70,000 nationals out of the region.
Rome plans to bus citizens from the UAE into Oman before flying them on via Oman Air and other charter operators, reflecting the continued constraints on direct services out of core hubs.
The UK government has said it is considering “all options” to bring people home but has so far favoured using commercial capacity where possible rather than immediately deploying dedicated evacuation flights.
Ripple effects from Asia to Europe
The knock‑on effects are being felt far beyond the Gulf.
Tens of thousands of passengers in Asia are still waiting for onward connections to Europe after Gulf routes were cut, forcing airlines and travel agents to scramble for scarce direct seats.
Industry executives say prices on remaining Asia–Europe non‑stop flights have almost doubled on some routes since the weekend as carriers including British Airways and Air France avoid the Gulf, while Virgin Atlantic has reported unusually heavy demand on its India services.
Low‑cost carrier easyJet has cancelled flights between the UK and Cyprus after an Iranian drone hit the RAF’s Akrotiri base on the island, highlighting how the conflict is reshaping flight patterns across the wider region.
Businesses in Gulf cities have told staff to work from home, and some Dubai residents are trying to leave via Oman or Saudi Arabia, where charter jet prices have jumped to roughly twice previous levels, according to local reports.
With limited flights out of the UAE and Qatar and key corridors over the Middle East still closed, airlines and passengers face days, if not weeks, of disruption even if military tensions ease, raising the prospect of a prolonged test of the sector’s post‑pandemic resilience.
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