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The Iran war has cut the number of airlines operating in Dubai by half, with Emirates stepping in to add new capacity, Dubai Airports chief executive has said.
In an interview at Farnborough Airshow in the UK, Paul Griffiths told Bloomberg: “We’re about 50 airlines now. That's about half of the normal number but, actually, a lot of the additional capacity that Emirates has put on is covering for those airlines.”
However, Mr Griffiths said all foreign airlines that suspended operations as a result of the conflict “are coming back very strongly”.
“Air France have suspended operations, IAG [International Airlines Group] are not starting, that's mainly because of advice from their governments,” Mr Griffiths said.
He added that insurance-related challenges are also creating hurdles.
The aviation sector had been steadily recovering since the conflict began on February 28 but renewed fighting between the US and Iran has forced many airlines to extend flight suspensions across the Middle East over safety concerns.
British Airways, Air Canada and Singapore Airlines are among those to have postponed resuming operations to Dubai after a flare-up in hostilities between Iran and the US.
The two countries have been exchanging strikes since the breakdown of the temporary ceasefire signed last month.
Iran has been attacking Arabian Gulf neighbours including Kuwait and Bahrain, while the US is targeting key military sites in Iran, with Washington completing a 10th consecutive night of strikes.
Mr Griffiths said there had been 16 missile impacts on Dubai's airport infrastructure during the conflict, with 111 missile alerts. Most of the damage at the airport has been fixed, with operations running normally, he added.
“There are a couple of things that will take a little longer to fix, but most of them were fixed within a couple of hours of the incident happening,” he said. “None of them have hampered our operations in any way and we've been able to operate [at] pretty much full capacity throughout the entire period.”
Dubai International and Zayed International airports suffered damage in the initial days of Iranian strikes, largely from debris falling from intercepted drones. Airline operations were also affected by the closure of airspace.
Despite renewed fighting in recent days, operations are “completely normal” at Dubai Airports, Mr Griffiths said.
“We are facilitating more than six million customer journeys since the conflict began,” he added. “If you look on the ground at DXB [Dubai International Airport], there's no suggestion that there's a problem and we'll continue to operate.”
Emirates is also operating at full capacity, with the airline reaching closer to 90 per cent of its regular schedule of operations.
“Airspace is still subject to some restrictions going to the north, but we've got plenty of other air routes across Saudi [Arabia] and out to the south. So air operations are continuing as normal,” Mr Griffiths said.
