The UAE has managed to keep aircraft flying in and out of its airports, seemingly against all odds.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi international airports were both struck on day one of Iran's attacks, on Saturday, February 28, killing one person and injuring 11.
Iran has targeted the aviation hubs several times since, while firing more than 2,000 missiles and drones at the country. About 93 per cent have been intercepted.
But as aviation hubs in Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait have shut down or been disrupted, the UAE has largely managed to keep flights running. How?
Dubai and Abu Dhabi use corridors approved by the aviation regulator to allow planes to take off when threats are low. Planes flying west to Europe typically head straight south, away from Iran, as soon as they take off, then head west over Saudi Arabia, FlightRadar24 shows.
Airspace to the east, over Oman, has had fewer missile threats, and Muscat airport has been open throughout much of the war. Planes inbound to Dubai are often placed in a holding pattern over Oman when there is a missile threat.
“We’ve closed airspace, we’ve opened it as the threat level has changed," Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, told CNN on Tuesday.
"We’ve been able to keep aircraft in the air and obviously to route through corridors that are properly designated by GCAA [UAE General Civil Aviation Authority] and holding aircraft at outstation [non-hub airports] so they can be safely diverted if there is a threat,” he said.
As has been reported, the authority has said that between March 1 and 12, more than 1.4 million passengers passed through the country’s airports. During this period there were 7,839 aircraft movements.
The organisation stated that the country’s national carriers have overall been operating at 44.6 per cent of normal levels.
“It’s testament to the close working and I’m sure operational arrangements across the UAE defence and transport ecosystem,” said Mark Pilling, managing editor of Arabian Aerospace, part of the Aviation Week Network.
The website Flightradar24 indicates that at the weekend, Emirates and Air Arabia were each operating at above 60 per cent normal capacity, Fly Dubai was above 35 per cent and Etihad was at around 30 per cent. Figures have since fallen as a result of temporary airspace closures.
Over the past week or so Qatar Airways has been operating at around 10 per cent of normal capacity from its Doha hub.
With Bahraini airspace closed, Gulf Air has not been flying from its home base, although it has operated some services from Riyadh and Dammam in Saudi Arabia.
Kuwaiti airspace remains closed, but flights to and from Muscat in Oman have continued throughout the conflict.
In contrast to several Gulf airlines, some European airlines have scrapped flights to the region for the coming weeks or even months.
These carriers – whose home governments are typically advising against travel to Gulf countries – can redeploy aircraft and staff to routes serving other regions of the world, an option unavailable to Gulf-based carriers, which are dependent on their local hubs.
Mr Griffiths suggested that difficulty in securing insurance was preventing some foreign carriers from running flights to and from the UAE.
“If foreign governments would underwrite – which surely for them should be a relatively easy thing to do – the operations of their airlines to the UAE, then obviously we’ll do everything we can to facilitate those,” he said.
“That’s the attitude of a lot of airlines coming in, that they are getting that support from governments to underwrite their insurance policies.”
Yvonne Ziegler, professor of business administration at Frankfurt University of Applied Sciences, said it was clear that the UAE could not keep hundreds of thousands of tourists in the country when Iran attacked.
“I’m sure the airlines have a reputation that can be easily lost if they [cannot carry] their customers that are stranded in their countries and worldwide," she said.
John Strickland, a former airline executive, said “safety and security comes before anything”.
“You’re talking about airlines with incredibly experienced management who’ve been through many crises and security challenges,” he said.
“With the fundamental caveat that safety and security can be assured, they will operate what they need to do to repatriate the enormous numbers of people stuck.”
Flightradar24 maps show services from the Gulf countries avoiding anywhere north after take-off, with incoming services tending to approach from southerly directions.
Services are avoiding Iranian or Iraqi airspace, with flights instead using corridors to the north and south. Corridors that are open have "limited capacity", according to Mr Griffiths.
'Security corridors'
“There is no formal aviation system called ‘security corridors’,” said Connor Hunter, director of operations and business development at Securewest International, a UK-headquartered global risk management specialist.
“In practice, what people are describing are standard air traffic service routes that are being used, prioritised or adjusted in response to the security environment.”
He said that in the Middle East, including within and near UAE airspace, these routes sit within normal “Flight Information Region” structures, which are physical three-dimensional areas within which flight information including alerts is provided to aircraft.
These can, he said, be refined through what are called NOTAMs or Notice to Air Missions, which are urgent alerts highlighting, for example, hazards, along with restrictions and other measures.
“The purpose is straightforward: to keep aircraft within predictable, tightly managed pathways and away from more sensitive or higher-risk areas where possible,” he said.
“These routes are not physically patrolled by fighter jets. They are protected through surveillance, air traffic control, routing discipline and close civil-military co-ordination. In this context, predictability and visibility are the real security measures.”
Dubai International Airport is a “banked hub”, meaning that many flights arrive simultaneously so that passengers can connect with one of a string of subsequent departures, which are likewise concentrated into certain time windows. Mr Hunter said that this system appeared to have been retained.
“What does appear to have changed is the level of control around those waves,” he said. “In a heightened threat environment, authorities and airlines are managing traffic more tightly through airspace restrictions, rerouting and controlled operating windows.
“In practical terms, the pattern remains recognisable, but with less flexibility and more security-driven oversight.”
Passenger or cargo aircraft have previously been shot down or damaged in or around conflict zones, although countries suspected of being responsible often do not admit their role.
An Azerbaijani Airlines Embraer 190 that crashed in December 2024, killing just over half of the 67 people on board, was suspected as having been shot down by the Russian military, the Associated Press reported at the time.
Following repeated denials, Iran eventually admitted that it shot down a Ukrainian International Airlines Boeing 737-800 in January 2020, killing all 176 on board.
After launching attacks on two military bases in Iraq where American troops were stationed, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) mistook the jet for a retaliatory missile.
Although safety is the key consideration when determining whether flights operate during crises, the financial costs of shutdowns are high.
“If the airliners are sat on the ground, crew are sat at home, you’re having to pay for the scheduled maintenance, you’re still having to pay for the staff, if you’re cancelling tickets you’re having to refund that – the commercial imperative [to keep flying] is really obvious,” said Guy Gratton, professor of aircraft test and evaluation at Cranfield University in the UK.
“The boards of all these companies are going to be spending a lot of their time looking at balance sheets or risk assessments and looking at anything suggests that particular routes can be flown safely. It’s so important for them to keep flying if they’re not to haemorrhage money.”
Mr Hunter said that he thought it likely that the conflict could continue for several weeks and could remain “materially disruptive” for one to three months, even if the highest-intensity phase was shorter.
