Airlines, airports and mobility managers scrambled for fresh contingency plans on 15 July after the UAE government and regional carriers issued a sweeping travel advisory prompted by renewed security tensions across the Gulf. Gulf News reports that while Etihad and Emirates remain largely on schedule, other regional hubs – most notably Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport – have suffered two consecutive days of drone and missile strikes, forcing at least 21 flight cancellations on routes linking Abha with Dubai and Sharjah. Travellers with onward connections through Saudi hubs are being urged to monitor airline alerts and build extra buffers into itineraries. For corporate travel managers the most immediate procedural change is India’s sudden reinstatement of the Air Suvidha platform – now branded “Air Suvidha 2.0”. Effective immediately, all UAE-origin passengers headed to India must file a digital self-declaration of health up to 24 hours before departure and present the QR confirmation at immigration on arrival. The requirement was re-activated after the World Health Organisation declared the Ebola/Bundibugyo outbreak in central Africa a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Exemptions that had allowed GCC travellers to skip the form have been withdrawn. Regional airspace has also become more complex to navigate. The European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) re-issued guidance warning carriers to avoid Yemen’s northern FIR and exercise caution along portions of the Oman-Yemen and Saudi-Yemen borders. Canadian, US and UK foreign ministries have echoed the advice, updating travel warnings for Saudi Arabia and cautioning that missile activity could resume “at short notice”. Several Gulf carriers have already filed alternative routings that lengthen block times by 15–25 minutes per sector, which could translate into downstream delays for tight business-trip turnarounds. Despite the turbulence, Dubai International (DXB) and Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International (AUH) continue to expect record summer throughput. Emirates projects peak daily departures of 100,000 passengers and recommends that premium-class flyers use the airline’s biometric Smart Gate channels to shave an average nine minutes off immigration processing. Meanwhile, Etihad says it is operating more than 300 daily flights, its largest schedule in history, and advises travellers to arrive four hours before departure to clear security bottlenecks created by extra document checks on India- and Saudi-bound services. Practical take-away: mobility teams should reconfirm bookings involving transits through Saudi Arabia, build longer layovers for Indian arrivals owing to the Air Suvidha 2.0 form, and keep staff updated on evolving insurer policies – many corporate travel-insurance plans exclude claims arising from travelling against government advice. Companies with frequent Gulf rotations may also consider contracting a real-time flight-tracking API to automate re-booking should fresh airspace closures occur.
Source: Gulf News
