Etihad and Emirates have announced they will operate at limited capacity from Dubai and Abu Dhabi until at least March 4, with some repatriation flights. The Israeli-US war with Iran has brought West Asia to a standstill and has stranded thousands in one of the busiest transport spaces, with multiple countries closing their airspaces due to the conflict.
Both the Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports had temporarily shut down operations after the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government announced a temporary partial airspace closure. The country’s two carriers, Etihad Airways and Emirates, have announced they will operate at limited capacity until at least March 4, with some repatriation flights. But the passengers have been advised not to go to the airports unless notified by the carriers.
Air India said on Tuesday that it is deploying its widebody aircraft with higher capacity on its services to Dubai and Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on March 3 and 4, to facilitate the return of passengers impacted by the ongoing situation in the region. The airspaces of Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait remain shut due to missile and drone threats from Iran.
There is some respite as far as Oman is concerned, with Air India Express saying that it will operate its scheduled flight to Muscat on March 4. “Air India Express will continue to operate its scheduled flights to and from Muscat on March 4. Alongside regular services to/from Delhi, Kochi, Kozhikode, Mangaluru, Mumbai, and Tiruchirappalli, we will also be operating additional flights to Delhi, Kochi, and Mumbai,” the airline said in a statement on Tuesday.
Jordan has announced it is reopening its airspace after an initial partial closure that took effect on Monday. On Tuesday evening, Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport too announced that Israeli airspace was set to gradually reopen overnight Wednesday to Thursday with only one passenger flight per hour in the first phase. The United States, along with Israel, continued its military operation against Iran that had begun on February 28 and has resulted in hundreds of deaths, including Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and several of Tehran’s top political and military leadership.
Iran has been retaliating even as the US and Israel continued their strikes as of Tuesday, and has expanded the area coming under the barrage of Iranian missiles and drones, targeting several of Washington’s assets in the region. Tehran is also firing missiles and drones at neighbouring Arab states, which led to the closure of airspaces in the first place, and strangling shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas trade travels past its coast.
