Missile alerts and a desperate race to get home

An Australian family holidaying in Dubai describes surreal experiences of missile warnings, flight cancellations and limited government aid as they struggle to find their way home, writes Annalinde Nickisch.

OUR UAE JOURNEY started with a 14-hour flight from Melbourne to Abu Dhabi with two tired kids aged three and eight.

We landed in Abu Dhabi around 1am on February 28th, picked up a rental car from the airport, and headed straight to Dubai. Our Airbnb wasn’t ready yet, so we stopped for breakfast and spent the morning wandering around JBR with the kids until it was time to check in. Once in the apartment, we slept briefly and then went to the supermarket to buy a few essentials for the house.

As we stood in the hallway, I texted a friend to ask if she wanted to have dinner with us while we were in town. My husband and I had lived in Dubai before, and this trip was going to be part vacation and part chance to see friends we hadn’t seen in years.

The answer came quickly:

‘Have you seen the news?’

We didn’t. We had no idea what he meant because our phones weren’t yet connected to local data. The UAE forwarded a statement from the Ministry of Defense stating that a large number of Iranian missiles targeting the country were seized.

It was the first moment we realized something serious had happened. But as we stood in the supermarket, everything around us still felt completely normal.

People were doing their shopping calmly.

We went back to the apartment, got the kids settled and went to bed.

Around two or three in the morning, our phones suddenly started making a loud alarm sound; the kind usually associated with fire alarms. A government emergency notification was sent to every phone in the country.

The message instructed people to stay in their homes, stay away from windows and take shelter due to the missile threat.

A minute later, my husband’s phone started beeping the same alert.

We took the kids and put them to bed. We closed the blinds in case the glass broke.

Not long after the report, we heard explosions outside.

Alarms and noise outside woke the children. We didn’t know how to explain what was happening at that moment, so we told them there was construction noise and kept them in bed with us while we waited.

Until that night, the idea of ​​hearing explosions coming from your home had only belonged to news footage or distant conflict. This wasn’t something I ever dreamed of experiencing first hand.

As we lay there we had no idea how serious the situation could be. We didn’t know if more missiles would arrive, if anything nearby would be hit, or what the next few hours would bring. There was nothing to do but wait.

My husband quietly packed a small bag full of passports and documents in case we needed to leave as soon as possible. At the same time, I couldn’t help but think that we were on the 29th floor. If something hits nearby it may be impossible to get out.

The next morning, the feeling was immediate: We had to leave the country as quickly as possible.

However, when we looked at the news, we saw that the airspace over the UAE was temporarily closed. Many neighboring countries also closed their airspace. It was not possible to leave for now.

We went back to the supermarket to stock up on extra food. Having lived through the early days of COVID in Australia, when supermarket shelves emptied overnight, we assumed people might start panic buying.

But the atmosphere was just the opposite.

The shelves were full. People were calm. Life seemed to go on as normal.

We followed the situation closely in the following days, especially the local news. Gulf NewsProviding much more detailed updates on missile intercepts and airport operations than most international publications.

At the same time, we tried to maintain a sense of normal routine for the children. After the first night, staying in the apartment and constantly checking the news quickly became tense and uneasy for everyone.

So we decided that if we were going to be inside anyway, we might try to create some sort of routine. We chose indoor activities and let the kids skiing in dubai to see penguins.

We were already seated in the indoor penguin viewing area when suddenly all the phones in the room started ringing with the same emergency alarm. Within seconds, the entire area was filled with alarm sounds.

Since we were already inside, we had nowhere else to go. People continued to sit. Families continued to watch the penguins. Outside the viewing area, the mall continued its normal business.

After a few minutes, the notification that everything is OK appeared.

The contrast between the urgency of the warnings and the calm of everything around us felt surreal.

Very early on we were advised to register with the Australian Government through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) so they would know which Australians were in the country. We registered immediately.

At that time, we were following the news closely and we could see that some governments were starting to organize flights for their citizens. Germany and Belgium, for example, organized government-sponsored flights to help their citizens leave the region.

Since we were asked to register, we thought a similar event could be organized for Australians.

In the following days, emails started arriving from DFAT.

We got about 10 of them in total. Every time one appeared there was a brief hope that it might be of practical help to Australians trying to leave.

But the messages largely repeated the same advice: Follow local government instructions and try to book commercial flights out of the country.

Travelers were also advised not to cancel existing airline reservations.

In practice, this meant trying to secure additional flights while preserving the original flights, even as cancellations continued across the region.

Our return tickets to Australia with Etihad were booked for March 14th.

By this point, we had heard numerous stories of travelers who booked additional flights only to have both their new and original reservations cancelled.

Instead of booking new flights immediately, we tried contacting Etihad in the hope of rescheduling our flights earlier.

Since our Australian SIM cards did not work for local calls, we purchased a prepaid local SIM and started calling the airline.

The problem with prepaid credit is that hold music still counts as call time.

After two or three hours on hold without speaking to anyone, the credit would run out and the call would be disconnected. We topped up the bill, called again, waited again and went out again.

After two days of effort, we finally succeeded.

The best the airline could offer was to move our flight forward one day from March 14th to March 13th.

Then the building next to us was hit by debris from the missile strike.

No one in our building was injured, but it was enough for us to reconsider waiting another week.

Instead we decided to leave as soon as possible.

We booked completely new tickets through Emirates for the earliest flight we could find.

Even when we were going to the airport, we weren’t sure if the plane would take off. Many people found their flights canceled at the last minute.

At the airport, our plane was still visible on the departure board. We checked it out and felt cautiously optimistic.

But even then the uncertainty was not over.

While we were sitting at the gate, security personnel suddenly asked passengers to move away from the windows. Within seconds, another emergency alert popped up on our phones and we were directed deeper into the terminal.

At this point we had already checked out of our Airbnb. Our luggage was already loaded somewhere on the plane.

We had no place to stay and no clear plan if the flight was cancelled.

For a while it actually seemed possible that we wouldn’t leave the country that day.

Two hours later another alarm came: everything is fine.

Boarding has resumed.

Eventually the plane backed away from the gate and took off.

Our Emirates flight finally departed from Dubai straight to Melbourne at 10am on the 10th of March.

The whole experience felt surreal from start to finish.

But it stayed with me for a moment.

The plane was not full.

There were empty seats, there were quite a few of them.

Looking around the cabin, it was hard not to think that these seats could easily be made available by the Australian Government for passengers who couldn’t afford to buy entirely new tickets or risk thousands of dollars on flights that would never take off.

In a situation where many Australians are trying to find their way home from an uncertain state of security, these empty seats felt like a missed opportunity.

For our family, the flight finally happened.

But we weren’t sure it would happen until the wheels left the track.

Annalinde Nickisch is a business-savvy, senior HR management professional with extensive experience and knowledge in Government and Industrial Relations, stakeholder management and managing HR operational risks throughout rapid organizational growth.

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