Just a handful of UK-bound flights are due to leave the Middle East today as thousands of Brits remain stranded in the middle of a warzone.
Much of the airspace over the Gulf remains closed after the United States and Israel launched a co-ordinated attack on Iran on Saturday – and retaliatory strikes from Tehran then hit tourist hotspots such as Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and Kuwait.
More than 100,000 Brits trapped in the region have registered with the Foreign Office as the UK draws up plans for one of the biggest evacuations of its citizens in peacetime.
So far around 1,500 flights heading to the Middle East have been axed globally, hitting the plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers, many of whom travel through the region to reach other destinations.
Today, Emirates plans to operate just two flights to Heathrow and one each to Gatwick and Manchester.
At least some of these flights will be operated by the airline’s A380 jets, which can each carry up to 615 passengers.
Meanwhile, Etihad Airways has scheduled one flight from Abu Dhabi to Heathrow. This is with a Boeing 787-10 Dreamliner, which has 336 passenger seats.
Qatar Airways – which usually serves Heathrow and Gatwick from Qatar – said on Tuesday morning that its operations remain suspended.
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Thousands of passengers are currently stranded at Dubai Airport
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So far around 1,500 flights heading to the Middle East have been axed globally, hitting the travel plans of hundreds of thousands of passengers
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On Monday afternoon, an Etihad Airways flight carrying stranded British nationals arrived at Heathrow airport.
Isabel, who previously lived in Dubai, had been due to fly home on Saturday but her flight was cancelled.
She told the Daily Mail: ‘I went to see my friends. I had such a great week. I had meant to have been leaving on Saturday. My friend was going to drive me to the airport.
‘I was like “Why has my flight been cancelled?” Ten minutes later I could hear an explosion.’
She added: ‘There were explosions this morning. It has been terrifying, like honestly, terrifying.
‘The noises, it was terrifying, the explosions. I used to live there and it was my first time back in three years.’
The flight was one of the only departures – alongside flights to Amsterdam, Munich and Cairo – out of Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport since war broke out on Saturday.
Amy Maguire, 23, was also on the eight-hour flight back after going on holiday with her baby daughter Anabel and her parents.
She said: ‘It has been horrifying.
‘It has been really difficult not knowing if your child is safe. The sounds have been horrendous. We had to go in this little room under the hotel.’
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Chaos at airports across the Gulf, including Dubai (pictured), as Iran hit back with drone and missile strikes, stranding 102,000 Brits in a region where 300,000 people from the UK live
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Am Etihad Airways plane landed at Heathrow Terminal 4 at 7.16pm yesterday, bringing back the first group of stranded Brits. Pictured: Marika Citrone, from Newcastle
Amy was holidaying in Abu Dhabi with her parents Rebecca and Jeff Moses, of Barrow-in-Furness.
Fay McCaul, 41, who was due to leave the UAE for London on Saturday, said ‘sirens started going off’ and people were told ‘to stay away from windows because of potential missile strikes’ when she was waiting for her flight.
She said: ‘It was just taking ages to board, with no announcements, so we didn’t know what was going on.
‘And then after the boarding time sirens started going off in the airport and everyone started receiving texts on their phones with alarm signals to stay away from windows because of potential missile strikes.
‘So then it was pretty chaotic, and the airline obviously didn’t know what was going on either.’
Paul Charles, a travel and aviation expert who runs the PC Agency, said the disruption to global air travel was the worst since Covid.
The Foreign Office has advised against travel to all countries currently under attack, including the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
Brits already in these countries have been urged to ‘immediately shelter in place’ as Iran continues retaliatory strikes following Saturday’s air assault that killed its Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.
The UK government is currently advising against all travel to Iran and Israel. It says anyone travelling to Cyprus should ‘take sensible precautions’ and follow the advice of local authorities, and advises against all travel to parts of Egypt.
For holidaymakers hoping to go to Turkey, officials currently advise against all travel to ‘within 10km of the border with Syria’ due to ‘fighting and a heightened risk of terrorism’.
Analytics company Cirium said 1,555 out of 5,340 flights scheduled to operate to the Middle East on Monday were cancelled.
This included 735 to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and 255 to Qatar.
About half a million passengers use airports in Dubai, Doha or Abu Dhabi each day.
Several Middle Eastern airports act as hubs for passengers travelling between the UK and destinations in Asia and Australia.
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The Fairmont Palm hotel in Dubai was hit over the weekend as tourist areas were hit by Iran
At Sydney, hundreds of passengers have been sleeping overnight after having their flights cancelled.
Flights between the UK and Cyprus have also been affected, with easyJet axing two inbound and two outbound flights connecting Paphos with Gatwick and Manchester, and one inbound and one outbound flight between Larnaca and Gatwick.
UK-based aviation consultant John Strickland said the disruption was ‘pretty unprecedented’.
He said: ‘The Gulf carriers are now so fundamental to much of global aviation, not least east-west flows between Europe and Asia.
‘I can’t recall a situation – other than the pandemic – where we’ve had these Gulf hubs out of action in this way before.
‘We’ve had other conflicts in the region, but not, I think, really in the scale of military conflict or scale of activity that we have now with the Gulf carriers.’
Mr Strickland said ‘hundreds of thousands of people’ in Dubai or other Middle Eastern hub airports ‘weren’t supposed to be there’.
He said flight options to Asia for passengers in Europe who want to avoid the Middle East include using airlines that fly straight to countries such as Thailand and Singapore.
But he warned there is ‘not much space’ on these flights as they usually operate with most seats booked, and airlines have ‘very little spare capacity available’.
Mr Strickland added: ‘There’s uncertainty about how long it’s going to last.
‘It’s all a real complex web, and a mess.’
