Tourists from Ukraine arrived in Dubai this week on one of flydubai’s first commercial inbound flights since Covid-19 restrictions lifted.
At 9.45pm on Wednesday, flight FZ 728 touched down on the tarmac at Terminal 2 of Dubai International Airport from Kiev’s Boryspil International Airport.
Of the 166 passengers on board, 25 said they chose Dubai as their first holiday destination of choice after flights resumed globally this month.
Welcomed on arrival by airport staff, some of the passengers were interviewed by Dubai’s Tourism and Commerce Marketing team to mark the occasion, including returning tourists and those visiting the city for the first time.
In a one-minute video, posted to Twitter by Dubai Media Office, one passenger travelling with friends said it was his first trip to Dubai.
“The journey was really nice, it was a direct flight from my country, Ukraine, and it took five hours,” he said.
“This is our first time in Dubai, we were waiting until we were allowed to finally come.”
A handful of returning travellers said they were happy to be back in the city they love, especially after months of travel restrictions.
“We are very happy to come back to Dubai,” another passenger said.
“Everything is clean and safe and we thank the government for their efforts.”
Hamad Obaidalla, chief commercial officer at flydubai, said the airline was looking forward to seeing its network grow to 66 destinations over the summer period.
“We have been hard at work to redesign our passenger journey in order to minimise the risk of transmission of Covid-19,” he said.
“These efforts are aligned to the stringent public health and safety measures that are in place to ensure that visitors feel safe when they arrive in Dubai.”
Ticket sales for flydubai flights resumed on June 24 after flight suspensions, introduced to the UAE in March to curb the spread of coronavirus, lifted.
Flights are now open for bookings on flydubai.com to up to 24 destinations including Amman, Alexandria, Baku and Tbilisi.
Destinations and flight frequencies will continue to be added to the schedule over the summer, subject to government approvals.
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Taleb Alrefai,
HBKU Press
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Sheikh Zayed's poem
When it is unveiled at Abu Dhabi Art, the Standing Tall exhibition will appear as an interplay of poetry and art. The 100 scarves are 100 fragments surrounding five, figurative, female sculptures, and both sculptures and scarves are hand-embroidered by a group of refugee women artisans, who used the Palestinian cross-stitch embroidery art of tatreez. Fragments of Sheikh Zayed’s poem Your Love is Ruling My Heart, written in Arabic as a love poem to his nation, are embroidered onto both the sculptures and the scarves. Here is the English translation.
Your love is ruling over my heart
Your love is ruling over my heart, even a mountain can’t bear all of it
Woe for my heart of such a love, if it befell it and made it its home
You came on me like a gleaming sun, you are the cure for my soul of its sickness
Be lenient on me, oh tender one, and have mercy on who because of you is in ruins
You are like the Ajeed Al-reem [leader of the gazelle herd] for my country, the source of all of its knowledge
You waddle even when you stand still, with feet white like the blooming of the dates of the palm
Oh, who wishes to deprive me of sleep, the night has ended and I still have not seen you
You are the cure for my sickness and my support, you dried my throat up let me go and damp it
Help me, oh children of mine, for in his love my life will pass me by.
How it works
A $10 hand-powered LED light and battery bank
Device is operated by hand cranking it at any time during the day or night
The charge is stored inside a battery
The ratio is that for every minute you crank, it provides 10 minutes light on the brightest mode
A full hand wound charge is of 16.5minutes
This gives 1.1 hours of light on high mode or 2.5 hours of light on low mode
When more light is needed, it can be recharged by winding again
The larger version costs between $18-20 and generates more than 15 hours of light with a 45-minute charge
No limit on how many times you can charge
