Airlines in Middle East rule out services resuming before Thursday
Some repatriation flights depart as governments around the world work to extract their citizens from the region
The biggest Middle East carriers have ruled out resuming scheduled flights until at least Thursday as the US-Israeli war on Iran continues, denting hopes of a swift return to normal air travel after the first repatriation flights left the United Arab Emirates.
Etihad, based in Abu Dhabi, said its commercial services were suspended until 2pm local time on Thursday 5 March, with Emirates ruling out scheduled flights until midnight on Wednesday.
Qatar Airways said it would give a further update on Wednesday but its airspace remained closed for all flights.
Travellers stranded by the widening conflict began departing the UAE on a small number of evacuation flights on Monday, as governments around the world worked to extract their citizens from the region.
Both Etihad Airways and Emirates, as well as the budget carrier FlyDubai, said they would continue to operate only limited cargo and repatriation flights after the chaos and damage caused by Iranian missiles and drones.
Since Saturday, at least 11,000 flights into, out of and within the Middle East have been cancelled, affecting more than a million passengers, according to the aviation analytics company Cirium.
The travel chaos is likely to continue, with the US president, Donald Trump, saying on Monday that the conflict had been projected to last four to five weeks, but could go on longer.
Late on Monday the US state department called on Americans to immediately leave more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, amid the worsening conflict triggered by US-Israeli strikes against Iran on Saturday.
Mora Namdar, the US state department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, said US citizens should leave using available commercial transportation “due to safety risks”. The US has not organised its own evacuation flights.
In the UK, Keir Starmer said the government was sending rapid deployment teams to the region to support British nationals there, and wanted “to ensure that they can return home as swiftly and safely as possible”.
The UK foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said on Tuesday that 130,000 British nationals had now registered their presence in the region, and that about 300,000 British citizens were in Gulf countries being targeted by Iran.
About 24,000 Australian citizens are also in the Middle East, some stranded in transit. The Gulf has become a major connecting hub for flights between Australia and Europe, and analysts said long-haul fares could rise sharply in the short term.
John Grant, an analyst at the aviation data company OAG, said: “The short-term loss of capacity through the Middle East clearly puts pressure on alternate routings, such as the direct services to Asia which are already close to full with their own local market demand and connecting traffic to Australia.
“Overlay that with Easter coming up and available capacity is pretty scarce … Selling fares are inevitably increasing and will stay that way until there is a settlement of the current events.”
The UAE government has urged passengers to go to airports only if contacted directly, warning that operations remained limited.
At least 16 Etihad flights left Abu Dhabi during a three-hour window on Monday, according to Flightradar24, heading to destinations including Islamabad, Paris, Amsterdam, Mumbai, Moscow and London.
Emirates said customers with earlier bookings were given priority for seats on the limited flights it has operated, starting Monday evening.
Airspace closures remain in effect for Iran, Iraq and Israel, and Jordan’s airspace was closed overnight on Monday. Partial closures have affected Bahrain, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Syria.
Germany’s foreign ministry said about 30,000 tourists from the country were stranded on cruise ships, in hotels or at closed airports in the Middle East. The government said it planned to send aircraft to Oman and Saudi Arabia to evacuate ill travellers, children and pregnant women while working with airlines to assist others.
On Tuesday morning, Europe’s biggest holiday company, Tui, said it would begin to offer flights back home for its 10,000 customers stranded in the Middle East from Tuesday, working with Etihad, Emirates and Qatar Airways.
“We expect to carry out the first flights today with these companies to return our guests,” its chief executive, Sebastian Ebel, told the broadcaster NTV.
Associated Press, Press Association and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report