A turbulent Sunday for Gulf aviation left scores of Indian travellers stranded after 46 flights were delayed or cancelled across Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah airports on 27 September. According to Khaleej Times, the disruptions affected a mix of regional and long-haul services; among the cancellations were Air India Express flight IX from Kochi and SpiceJet service SG 5060 from Mumbai. Emirates, Flydubai and Etihad also reported delays ranging from 30 minutes to almost 19 hours, some triggered by knock-on effects of airport closures in Russia’s Sochi and heavy fog over parts of the Gulf. India-UAE is the world’s busiest international air corridor, handling more than 14 million passengers in 2025, and Sunday’s hiccup underscores how operational snags in the Gulf rapidly ripple through Indian corporate-travel itineraries. UAE hubs serve as critical transit points for Africa, Europe and the Americas; a cancelled Kochi–Dubai flight can therefore derail onward connections to New York or Nairobi booked on the same PNR. Airlines tried to limit the impact. Emirates re-booked stranded passengers on later services and offered hotel accommodation for overnight delays exceeding eight hours. SpiceJet said affected Delhi and Mumbai passengers could claim a full refund or reschedule without penalty within seven days. Nevertheless, travel-management companies reported missed meetings and lost hotel deposits for corporate groups heading to trade exhibitions in Frankfurt and Riyadh. For mobility teams, the incident is a reminder that Gulf weather (fog in winter, sandstorms in spring) and over-scheduling at peak slots continue to pose reliability challenges, despite hub carriers having largely restored pre-Covid capacity. Experts recommend building longer layovers for mission-critical travel, purchasing flexible fares that allow re-routing via Muscat or Doha, and subscribing to IATA’s Global Travel Adapter for real-time disruption alerts. UAE authorities, meanwhile, reiterated that airports now operate at “nearly full capacity” and predicted that the network would exceed 2019 traffic by year-end. With Indian carriers eyeing additional bilateral rights in the forthcoming winter schedule, aviation analysts say infrastructure strain could intensify unless slot coordination and air-traffic-control staffing keep pace.
Source: Khaleej Times
