Amid airspace closures and flight suspensions, thousands of UAE residents have found themselves stranded this week, as regional conflict has escalated.
However, following the reopening of the country’s airports on Monday, and as airlines have gradually resumed services and adjusted schedules, many UAE residents have been able to travel back into the country.
For Paul and Natalie Hunter, their trip home from Rome involved a three-day journey via Istanbul and Muscat, to return to Abu Dhabi where they have been reunited with their children.
“We spent a long weekend booking lots of different ways home,” midwife Natalie tells The National, hours after returning to the UAE. “It’s such a strange feeling to be in one country and your children being in another with no possibility of getting to them … You feel so stranded and helpless.”
Paul, who works for FAB, adds that they were “hedging their bets” with flights booked via Riyadh, Doha, Muscat and Istanbul.
“The flights kept getting cancelled, so we kept booking new ones,” he adds.
The couple are parents to six children, aged between seven and 18, who had stayed home with their housekeeper.
In the end, they flew to Muscat, after a night in Istanbul airport, and crossed into the UAE by road on the Hatta border, a process they described as busy, but relatively straightforward after their Omani driver had taken them across the border to be picked up.
“I just wanted to get home,” Natalie adds. “Once you’re in the UAE, you know you’re safe here.”
Trust in the UAE
This is a sentiment shared by other travellers, who have made their way back to the emirates this week.
“I was originally booked to come back on Monday, but when I knew the situation was not going well, I started trying from Saturday evening to return earlier,” says Rebekah Bennett, a marketing and communications director. “I have my two-year-old son back in Dubai, so my priority was getting back to him as quickly as possible.”
She adds, “The UAE is my adopted home, and I have full trust and respect for how they are navigating this awful situation.”
For Bennett, the process of returning to the UAE from Milan on Wednesday was simple, but she had to show her Emirates ID to prove she was a resident before boarding.
“I have been luckier than others, because my flight was booked through a travel agency it was easier to manage with their support.”
Schengen visa woes amid cancellations
Sharjah resident Tabinda Usmani and her husband Sumit Sharma were travelling in Europe on Schengen visas, which expired on March 1.
The couple were due to leave Paris on February 28 on a Kuwait Airways flight, which was cancelled. With the added pressure of an about-to-expire visa, the couple booked an Emirates flight on March 1, which was also cancelled.
“We called everyone, the French embassy, the UAE embassy, Emirates, and nobody really knew what to do,” Usmani recalls, adding that they were ultimately forced to stay in Paris until March 3.
“When we landed, the airport was completely empty, the ground staff said we were the first flight that had entered,” she recalls.
Quiet flights back
Hannah Castleton, a Dubai PR director had also been travelling in Europe and planned to return to the UAE with her mum on March 1. After an initial cancellation, she changed her Virgin Atlantic flight for Wednesday, which she was able to travel on.
“There were only about 15 people on my flight from Heathrow last night,” she says. “The cabin crew said more than 2,000 people are trying to get back.”
She says that she’s happy to be back in Dubai after speaking to her friends and family on the ground.
“I just felt a bit unsettled being away from my partner and pets when all this was going on,” she says. “Speaking to people in the UAE reassured me that things have gone back to business as usual. I didn't want to be scared by reading and watching the UK media, because they've painted it into something a lot scarier.”
She adds: “Flying into DXB this morning was really quiet, it felt like Covid-19 again, but everyone was as welcoming as usual.”
For Zinita Satija, the journey back wasn’t as easy. She tried to travel from Gondia in India to Abu Dhabi via Hyderabad on February 28, after six weeks away. Following an initial cancellation, she was able to book onto an Emirates flight from Delhi on March 3, which she says only had about 50 to 60 passengers on board.
“Unfortunately, after about an hour in the air, an announcement came that the flight would be returning to Delhi,” she says. “We were shocked and confused. Once we landed, our boarding passes were taken and there was little information about what would happen next. We were all clueless.
“Later in the evening, I received an email with the same boarding pass, but with a new departure time, 11.30pm instead of 4.15am. I was in two minds about trying again, but finally decided that I would try every possible flight to get back.”
After delays, the flight boarded, took off and reached Dubai with around 25 passengers.
“After such a long and uncertain journey, it felt like a huge relief.”
