Plans by the Dubai-based mega airline Emirates to resume a limited number of ‘exceptional’ flights to help repatriate stranded tourists descended into chaos in the early hours of Tuesday morning after Iran launched a salvo of missiles and kamikaze drones at the United Arab Emirates.
Just minutes after the UAE Ministry of Defence confirmed that air defense systems across the country were actively engaging ballistic missiles headed towards Abu Dhabi and Dubai, Emirates flight EK-501 from Mumbai was forced into a holding pattern over the Gulf of Oman.
The attack started to unfold at around 3:00 am (local UAE time), and Emirates had five flights inbound to Dubai from Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, and Bangalore.
Emirates flight EK-501 entered a holding pattern for a short time, doing several loops off the coast of the UAE before heading further south towards Oman.
At the same time, it appears that the airline’s operations center ordered all of the flights in the air from India to turn back to their origin points, and then later, turned them back round to continue flying towards Dubai.
Etihad Airways in neighboring Abu Dhabi had even more flights in the air at the time of the missile attack, with two cargo flights immediately diverting to Muscat in Oman, where airspace remains open.
Another flight, EY-604, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was also diverted to Muscat, while other flights still several hours out from Abu Dhabi continued on their course.
On Monday, the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) announced that it had given the go-ahead for a limited number of flights to operate in and out of the country’s airports.
An Etihad Airways Airbus A380 was the first passenger flight to take off from Abu Dhabi Zayed International Airport bound for London Heathrow at around 2:00 pm on Monday.
A total of 15 Etihad Airways flights departed from Abu Dhabi on Monday afternoon bound for London, Paris, Amsterdam, Moscow, Mumbai, Delhi, Islamabad, Kochi, Cairo, Bangalore, Riyadh, Dammam, Jeddah, Muscat, and Karachi.
Local officials urged stranded passengers not to travel to the airport unless they had been contacted by their airline and confirmed on a departing flight.
Regularly scheduled flights remain suspended. Etihad Airways says it does not intend to resume its normal flying schedule until Wednesday at the earliest, while Emirates says normal operations are suspended until further notice.
In Doha, Qatar Airways kept its flights grounded on Monday, and the airline is expected to provide a further update on Tuesday morning.
Flew in and out of DFW today and saw two Qatar and one Emirates jets “parked off to the side, away from the gates.