A fresh round of schedule changes rippled across the UAE’s three busiest gateways on September 20 after weekend hostilities in Saudi Arabia prompted carriers to rebalance aircraft and crew. Khaleej Times tallied more than 40 affected services, with Bahrain-bound flydubai flights scrubbed entirely and long-haul connections to Kochi and Sochi posting double-digit hour delays. Airlines say the bottlenecks are driven by a mix of airspace restrictions, crew-duty limitations and a backlog of diverted aircraft awaiting new slots. While Emirates and Etihad were largely able to protect their trunk routes, secondary markets such as Minsk, Almaty and Tbilisi saw cascading knock-on effects. For corporate mobility managers, the disruption highlights the fragility of regional scheduling ecosystems. Mid-size firms that rely on low-cost carriers for shuttle traffic to the Caucasus and Central Asia are being urged to add hotel-and-driver contingencies, especially for project engineers rotating out of Jebel Ali and Ruwais. Dubai Airports emphasised that passenger volumes are still climbing toward a projected 70 million this year but conceded that punctuality metrics have dipped since the latest flare-up in the Yemen conflict. The operator is working with GDRFA, Dubai Police and customs to streamline peak-period processing so that once aircraft do arrive, passengers clear formalities quickly. Travel insurers have begun fielding a spike in claims for missed onward connections. Experts say companies should verify that their policies recognise ‘security-related airspace closures’ as a covered peril; some basic products do not.
Source: Khaleej Times
