UAE steps up emergency repatriation flights

• 130 flights left on Tuesday
• 87% of UAE flights grounded
• Oman airlines offer bus transfers

Almost 130 flights left airports in the UAE on Tuesday as part of emergency efforts to repatriate thousands of people stranded by the conflict in the Gulf.

Just over 1,000 flights were scheduled for March 3, but more than 87 percent remained grounded, according to the latest update from aviation analytics company Cirium.

Dubai International Airport (DXB), the busiest airport for international traffic in the world, would usually handle more than 1,000 flights per day.

Commercial flights from Etihad Airways, Emirates and Qatar Airways remain suspended with airspace over the UAE and much of the Gulf shut since Saturday.

Iran launched retaliatory strikes across the GCC following coordinated attacks by the US and Israel that killed Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri, the UAE’s economy and tourism minister, said almost 17,500 passengers on 60 flights had been successfully transported via emergency corridors by mid-afternoon on Tuesday. Capacity is set to expand further as security assessments allow, he added.

Across the Middle East, almost 40 percent of scheduled flights took off. That number is expected to increase to more than two-thirds on Wednesday, as per Cirium data.

Oman Air offered bus transfers from Sharjah to Muscat on Wednesday for passengers seeking onward flights.

Saudi Arabia and Oman had the highest operational rates, with about 75 percent of departures operating from Saudi airports and more than 60 percent from Muscat.

Yvette Cooper, the UK’s foreign secretary, said on Tuesday that the British government was working with airlines to organise flights.

Cooper, addressing parliament, said she was also in close contact with her counterparts in the Gulf countries, where 130,000 British citizens have now registered their presence in the region.

“We are also working with airlines on increasing capacity out of Muscat for British nationals, with priority for vulnerable nationals,” Cooper said, as quoted by Reuters.

“A government charter flight will fly from Muscat in the coming days, prioritising vulnerable nationals, but British nationals in Oman must wait to be contacted by the Foreign Office regarding these options.”

There were no departures from Bahrain International Airport on Tuesday.