A passenger Mohd Umardaraz from Bijnor Uttar Pradesh was stranded at Terminal-3 of the Delhi airport after his flight to Kuwait was canceled due to airspace restrictions over Iran and parts of the Middle East on March 1, 2026 in New Delhi, India.
Arvind Yadav | Hindustan Times | fake images
The first flights from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, departed on Monday after more than 11,000 were canceled in the Middle East since the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Saturday.
It's a sign of how airlines are preparing to restart service to the region after mass cancellations, but local authorities gave airlines the green light only to resume a “limited number” of flights.
The first was Emirates flight EK500, which took off at 9:12 p.m. local time bound for Mumbai, India, according to Flightradar24, a flight tracking site. The flight was carried out on an Airbus A380, the largest passenger plane in the world.
Another Flydubai flight to Warsaw, Poland, took off after 1 a.m. local time on Tuesday, Flightradar24 said. An Air Baltic plane left Dubai, but the Latvia-based airline said it was only a repositioning flight, not carrying passengers.
Separately, Israeli airline El Al said Monday that it is considering chartering private planes to bring home stranded Israeli citizens.
The announcements mark a potential improvement after air travel ground to a halt across a large swath of the Middle East over the weekend following the US and Israeli strikes on Iran and subsequent retaliatory strikes.
The attacks closed airspace across much of the region, stranding hundreds of thousands of customers around the world, including those who were not flying to and from the area because planes could not transit those areas. Dubai is one of the busiest air transport hubs in the world.
The airport authority that owns and manages airports in Dubai said a small number of flights would be allowed to operate from Dubai International and Dubai World Central – Al Maktoum International, but advised travelers to check with their airlines.
For its part, Emirates said it will begin operating a “limited number of flights” on Monday night and urged customers not to come to the airport unless notified by the airline.
“We are serving customers with earlier bookings as a priority,” it said in a post on X. “All other flights remain suspended until further notice,” it said.
El Al said it is considering hiring KlasJet planes to fly passengers from European airports to Aqaba, over Jordan's southern border, for the airline's customers. He previously considered flying in and out of Taba, Egypt, but later on Monday said the plan was scrapped “due to lack of approval from Israel's security authorities.”
Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, said Monday that all commercial flights to and from the city are suspended until Wednesday afternoon local time, although it may operate some cargo and repatriation flights “subject to strict operational and safety protocols.”
