War in Iran: spectacular U-turns and 2,000 canceled flights, Fly Emirates’ struggles to maintain its air traffic in Dubai

It’s a complicated smooth recovery. Between air alerts and drone attacks to anticipate. Three weeks after the start of the war in Iran, Dubai International Airport has resumed a slow but continuous pace in an attempt to limit the damage.

The government quickly made the partial resumption of traffic one of its priorities and “secure emergency air corridors” were put in place by the United Arab Emirates to limit the number of cancellations departing from Dubai, according to the Emirati Minister of Economy and Tourism, Abdulla bin Touq Al Marri.

But that doesn’t prevent a few hiccups. According to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Emirati airspace is still subject to “possible one-off closures linked to missile and drone fire”.

9,100 km and 11 hours of flight to return to the starting point

Results, since February 28, Emirates, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has canceled more than 2,000 flights, or 54% of its scheduled flights, according to Cirium data. A very good figure compared to the 93% cancellation rate at Qatar Airways or 79% at Etihad, its two biggest competitors in the region.

But by wanting to resume its air traffic at all costs, Fly Emirates got itself into a real mess with “flights to nowhere” as many Internet users joke about on social networks. Fans of FlightRadar, an interactive map for real-time flight tracking, couldn’t help but target the dozens of flights each day making spectacular U-turns.

Among them, Emirates flight EK10 from London (United Kingdom) was flying over Saudi Arabia on Monday when it turned back due to a drone attack on Dubai airport. The results were a journey of 9,100 km and more than 11 hours to return to its starting point at Gatwick. Earlier this week, around 30 Emirates flights were ordered to turn around or be diverted urgently due to the airspace closure, according to Reuters.

For longer hauls coming from New York (United States), Tokyo (Japan) or even Shanghai (China), the preferred option was to change destination en route to Cairo (Egypt), Karachi or Islamabad (Pakistan), and even Dhaka (Bangladesh).

Two flights from Dallas and Toronto (Canada) were also diverted to Italy, while planes from Lusaka, Dhaka and Johannesburg stopped at intermediate airports or returned home.