UAE airports face rolling cancellations and delays but European routes start to return

Passengers using Dubai International (DXB), Abu Dhabi’s Zayed International (AUH) and Sharjah International (SHJ) on 23 October woke to a patchwork of cancellations, delays and schedule changes. flydubai scrubbed more than 20 Saudi, Tel Aviv and Damascus services, while Emirates, Air Arabia and Etihad reported fresh Saudi cancellations and weather-related disruptions to Taipei and Bangkok. Gulf News’ real-time bulletin notes that Philippine Airlines has quietly restarted four weekly Manila–Dubai rotations, and that Lufthansa will bring back twice-daily Frankfurt and Munich flights from 25 October, with SWISS following on 27 October. Eurowings, Austrian and several low-cost European carriers have pencilled November and December return dates, signalling confidence that conflict-zone risk over the Gulf can be managed with higher-altitude routings. Airlines continue to avoid Saudi overflights below FL260 and remain barred from Iranian airspace under US and EU advisories. The resulting longer routings add block-time and cost – one reason Wizz Air has cancelled its entire UAE programme for the winter. Nevertheless, the incremental resumption of European links is a welcome boost for UAE hotels and corporates that rely on winter tourism and business missions. For mobility managers the message is to double-check booking engines before issuing tickets: availability is changing by the hour, interline agreements are patchy and rebooking queues are lengthy. Affected travellers should keep receipts for alternative transport and accommodation; most companies are treating these as reimbursable trip-disruption costs. Those planning travel after 25 October should reconfirm flights 48 hours before departure and again on the morning of travel. On the compliance front, UAE immigration authorities have not issued blanket grace periods for visa-overstayers stranded by flight cancellations. Travellers unable to depart on schedule should file a ‘forced-stay’ request through their airline or via an Amer Centre to avoid daily fines of AED50.