Limited flights out of the Middle East resumed Monday, but hundreds of thousands of travelers remain stranded at major aviation hubs after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran and subsequent regional attacks.
Tourists and business travelers hunkered down in hotels and airports across the region waiting to learn when airports would fully reopen and schedules would normalize. “We’re waiting to fly out. Our flights keep getting canceled,” said Kristy Ellmer of Portsmouth, N.H., who traveled to Dubai for business and has seen multiple daily cancellations.
Emirates said it would operate “a limited number of flights” Monday evening and would prioritize customers with earlier bookings, but warned other services remain suspended. Flight-tracking site Flightradar24 reported more than 3,400 flight cancellations in the Middle East on Monday alone, bringing the total since the war began to nearly 10,000. Its daily breakdown showed thousands of cancellations across seven major airports, including Dubai (DXB), Doha (DOH) and Abu Dhabi (AUH).
Airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha—key hubs for travel between Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia—were closed over the weekend after Iranian strikes that targeted civilian and military sites in U.S.-friendly Gulf states. Dubai International, one of the world’s busiest airports, resumed a small number of flights Monday evening after video circulated showing passengers fleeing down smoke-filled hallways following a suspected drone strike. Abu Dhabi announced partial operations resumed, and Etihad flights were among the first to take off. Doha’s main airport said flights remained temporarily suspended.
It’s unclear exactly how many international travelers are stuck in the region, but aviation analytics firm Cirium estimates about 90,000 passengers transit daily through the three major carriers—Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways—on average. With airspace closures and ongoing strikes and counterstrikes, more cancellations are likely in the coming days.
Stranded travelers have scrambled to make alternate plans. Ellmer, who works as a consultant helping clients navigate change, said keeping perspective has helped: “We’ve lost a few service members through this. There are people who are living in much worse conditions right now through this conflict. We’re staying at a good hotel that’s taking care of us, so keeping that perspective is helping me be calm.”
