It can now be revealed that British Airways orchestrated the emergency evacuation of stranded pilots and flight attendants from Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the early hours of Monday after sending an empty Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to the Persian Gulf to fly the aircrew out of danger.
Ordinarily, British Airways operates up to four daily flights to the United Arab Emirates, including its flagship Airbus A380 superjumbo, which operates with as many as 22 cabin crew and three pilots.
In total, it’s estimated that British Airways had at least 60 crew members stranded in the UAE after the airspace across a wide swathe of the Middle East was shuttered early on Saturday morning when the United States and Israel launched a massive military campaign against Iran.
Since then, British Airways had been working with the Foreign Office to develop an emergency plan to get all of its crews out of Bahrain, Israel, Jordan, and the UAE, after it became clear that airspace would remain shuttered for some time.
On Sunday afternoon, British Airways dispatched an empty Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner from its hub at London Heathrow to the Omani capital, Muscat – a destination that it has not flown to since early 2020, and one of the few cities in the Gulf where flights are still being allowed to arrive and depart.
According to the flight tracking website Flight Radar 24, the aircraft (registration: G-ZBKD), the plane landed in Muscat at 2:40 am (local time) on Monday and took off again just an hour later.
We are now reporting this news after the aircraft cleared the region and entered European airspace on its way back to London.
Other stranded aircrew have already been rescued from other destinations that British Airways has been forced to suspend scheduled flights to:
- Crew who were in Tel Aviv were evacuated with the assistance of Israeli flag carrier El Al as it moved its aircraft out of the city on Saturday afternoon. El Al also offered spaces on board its aircraft to aircrews from multiple other foreign airlines.
- Meanwhile, pilots and flight attendants who found themselves stranded in Bahrain were driven out of the country late on Saturday for the five-hour drive across the desert to Riyadh in neighboring Saudi Arabia.
Also on Sunday, Austrian Airlines dispatched an empty Airbus A320 to Muscat to evacuate its aircrew who had been stuck in Dubai. Due to airspace restrictions, the return flight from Muscat to Vienna had to make a short stopover in Hurghada, Egypt, to refuel before continuing on to Austria.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of passengers remain stranded across the Persian Gulf as airspace closures stretch into the third day, with no clear indication of when flights might be allowed to resume.
Dubai-based mega airline Emirates has pushed the potential restart of its flight operations to Tuesday afternoon at the earliest, while Qatar Airways says it will provide a further update on its operations on Tuesday morning.
Etihad Airways is still saying that it plans to resume operations at 2:00 pm (local) on Monday, but this is likely to be delayed.
It is now being widely reported that the United Kingdom is working on emergency contingency plans for the biggest overseas repatriation of its citizens in history should the airspace restrictions continue.
The British government has called on stranded holidaymakers and passengers in transit to register their presence in the Middle East, which is normally one of the first steps in a coordinated response by the Foreign Office to arrange emergency charter flights to get citizens home.
More than 76,000 people have already registered their location. Most of these people were on holiday in the Middle East or transiting through airports like Dubai International Airport when flights were suddenly grounded yesterday.
The European Union is also working on a coordinated response to evacuate its citizens from the Gulf, with stranded citizens urged to shelter in place for the timebeing while their governments develop evacuation plans.
On Sunday evening, President Trump told reporters that he expects the military action in Iran to last around four weeks.
The UAE Ministry of Defence says it has already intercepted 165 Iranian missiles and 541 kamikaze drones, although some projectiles have struck targets across the country, including a direct hit on Dubai International Airport (DXB)
