Khaleej Times reported on 20 September that regional tensions continued to ripple through UAE aviation, with more than two dozen flights delayed or cancelled at Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah airports. Among the highest-impact disruptions were an 18-hour delay to Sochi, an 11-hour delay to Kochi and cancellations of Bahrain sectors on flydubai and Air Arabia. The newspaper attributes the volatility to precautionary air-traffic-control measures linked to security warnings over neighbouring Saudi airspace as well as routine operational issues. Affected carriers urged travellers to refresh flight-status pages frequently and complete online check-in to reduce airport congestion. Data from flight-tracking platforms show average departure punctuality at DXB slipping to 71 percent, compared with the month-to-date average of 84 percent. For corporate mobility teams the message is clear: factor extra buffer time into connections, steer employees toward morning departures (which historically have higher completion rates) and issue real-time alerts through travel-management-company dashboards. Importantly, UAE immigration authorities have not reinstated automatic overstay-fine waivers introduced during the February–March airspace closures; travellers whose visas expire because of cancelled flights must apply for an extension or risk penalties. Insurers say travel-disruption claims out of the UAE spiked 43 percent year-on-year in the third quarter, driven largely by cascading delays. Companies with large regional mobility flows are therefore revisiting duty-of-care policies and re-evaluating preferred-carrier lists based on operational resilience. Looking ahead, analysts expect punctuality to improve once a mid-October Gulf ATC software upgrade increases routing flexibility around restricted zones.
Source: Khaleej Times
