Limited evacuation flights begin from UAE as war disrupts Middle East travel

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Limited evacuation flights began leaving the United Arab Emirates on Monday for some travelers stranded as a wider conflict in the Middle East disrupted commercial travel across the region, the Associated Press reported.

The limited flights departed from Dubai and Abu Dhabi while most airline schedules remained suspended or heavily restricted after U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran began Saturday and were followed by retaliatory attacks on Israel and Gulf states. The State Department’s guidance added urgency to the timing: the department urged Americans in 13 countries, including the UAE, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon and Oman, to “depart now via commercial means due to serious safety risks,” AP said.

The flight disruptions reflected sweeping airspace closures and cancellations across the Middle East. AP reported that airspace remained closed Monday over Iran, Iraq and Israel, and that Jordan introduced a temporary closure starting Monday afternoon. Other Gulf countries, including Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, had partial or temporary closures that could be extended, AP said, citing flight-tracking service Flightradar24.

Aviation and tracking data showed the scale of the disruption. Cirium said about 13,000 of roughly 32,000 flights scheduled into and out of the Middle East since Saturday had been canceled, and Flightradar24’s tracking indicated flights into King Khalid International Airport near Riyadh were holding or turning back after reports of explosions from a drone.

Airlines operating the evacuation flights were likely doing so with government backing, with their home countries assuming part of the financial risk, said Henry Harteveldt, president of travel market research firm Atmosphere Research Group, according to AP. Harteveldt told AP that airlines were unlikely to resume more broadly until they were “fully confident that there is a zero — or as close as possible to zero — risk that their aircraft will be attacked.”

AP reported that Etihad Airways and Emirates, based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai respectively, along with budget carrier FlyDubai, said they would operate limited flights from the UAE. In Flightradar24 data, at least 16 Etihad flights left Abu Dhabi during a three-hour window Monday heading to destinations including Islamabad, Paris, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Moscow and London; Etihad’s website, however, said regular commercial flights remained suspended until Wednesday afternoon.

Emirates said customers with earlier bookings would receive priority for seats aboard its limited flights scheduled to start Monday evening, while FlyDubai said it would operate four outbound flights and five inbound. Dubai Airports, which runs the city’s two airports, urged passengers to go only if their airline had sent confirmation, while AP reported that the authority showed a larger number of flights for Tuesday.

The disruption left travelers navigating changing schedules and limited options. AP described a 29-year-old Georgetown University law student, Leela Rao, who boarded one of Monday’s Etihad flights after learning of the airstrikes while waiting to connect in Abu Dhabi Saturday; she spent hours at the airport before moving to a shelter-in-place alert and later spending time at a Dubai hotel arranged by Etihad, before arriving in Delhi for a friend’s wedding. AP also reported on Scotland resident Faizan Khalid, his wife and their 6-month-old daughter, who were stranded after a cancelled flight home that included a Dubai connection, and said their supply of baby formula was running low. Another AP account described London writer Hen Mazzig, stuck in Tel Aviv after the war erupted, as she tried to rearrange plans.

As the evacuation efforts expanded, governments moved to arrange repatriation and provide support. AP reported that El Al said it was preparing a major “recovery operation” to bring stranded passengers home once Ben Gurion Airport near Tel Aviv reopens, and that customers booked on El Al and its subsidiary, Sundor, would not be charged for seats on the flights. The U.S. directed Americans needing help arranging commercial transport to contact the State Department, while British Prime Minister Keir Starmer told AP the situation on the ground “may remain challenging for some time” and that the U.K. government was “looking at all options to support our people,” according to the AP report.

Across other countries, AP reported, assistance and warnings varied by destination and the scale of the stranded population. The Philippines upgraded its travel advisory for the UAE to a level that triggers a deployment ban on newly hired Filipino workers, while Indonesia said more than 58,000 of its citizens were stranded in Saudi Arabia during Ramadan and that thousands were also stuck on Bali due to international flight cancellations. Germany’s Foreign Ministry said about 30,000 German tourists were stranded across the Middle East, and it planned to send aircraft to Oman and Saudi Arabia to evacuate ill travelers, children and pregnant people. AP also reported that the Czech Republic planned to send planes to Egypt, Jordan and Oman to bring home citizens from Israel and surrounding countries, and that Britain was preparing for possible evacuation after more than 102,000 people registered their presence in the region.