Repatriation Flights Surge as Countries Work to Bring Citizens Home

With few options, McKane and his friends eventually took a rental car to the Oman border; taxi drivers there were charging up to $650 to take people to Muscat International Airport. The trip to Muscat took 10 hours, but it paid off: McKane arranged to fly to India at the last minute and arrived Wednesday exhausted but relieved.

Hundreds of thousands of travelers found themselves similarly stranded in the Middle East after Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Saturday, and Iran retaliated against Gulf states and Israel. Governments from North America and Africa to Europe and Southeast Asia continued their race to return their citizens home Wednesday as much of the region’s airspace closed and air strikes intensified.

Authorities chartered jets or deployed military planes and routed stranded passengers through Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; These were important exit points from which planes could land and take off.

A plane carrying French citizens from Oman and then Egypt landed in Paris early on Wednesday, the first of several repatriation flights expected to be organized by France. A group of students returned to Italy after their government evacuated them from Dubai. More than 200 people from 16 countries left Iran by land via neighboring Turkmenistan, despite the former Soviet country’s strict visa policies.

Even as repatriation efforts gained momentum, many travelers faced the choice of waiting or trying to get a seat on a dwindling number of commercial flights.

More than 23,000 of nearly 44,000 flights scheduled to and from the Middle East from the start of the war through Thursday were canceled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Flight tracking service FlightAware reported more than 2,400 flight cancellations worldwide on Wednesday, up from about 3,150 on Monday.

Rescue flights continue France estimates that around 400,000 of its citizens are residents or travelers in conflict-affected areas of the Middle East.

Eleonore Caroit, the minister responsible for French citizens abroad, said about 100 seats on the country’s first evacuation flight were reserved for vulnerable passengers, including families with children, the elderly and those with medical conditions. Two more flights were expected on Wednesday: a military plane from Abu Dhabi, UAE, carrying 180 French citizens, and a charter from Israel bringing 205 people.

The U.S. State Department said 18,000 Americans had returned safely, including 8,500 on Tuesday. Meanwhile, President Donald Trump’s top spokesman pushed back Wednesday against criticism that the administration is not doing enough to help Americans leave.

Press secretary Karolyn Leavitt insisted “plans are in place.”

“We will assist any American who wants to return home if they make this request to the State Department,” he said, adding that the department hotline message advising callers not to rely on U.S. government assistance had been corrected.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said that approximately 280 citizens were evacuated.

Approximately 15,000 people left Israel by land, crossing into Jordan and Egypt. The Israeli Ministry of Tourism operates buses that transport tourists to Egypt’s southern border.

Britain said a charter flight would depart from Oman late on Wednesday to bring back some of the thousands of British citizens in the Gulf. Britain’s Foreign Office said it had registered the presence of more than 130,000 British nationals in the Middle East with the government since Saturday, but officials said not all of them were trying to leave.

Emirates airline will operate flights from Dubai to Dublin on Wednesday, Ireland’s foreign minister said. A charter flight is also planned to evacuate 280 people from Oman in the coming days. There are an estimated 22,000 to 23,000 Irish citizens in the Middle East, officials said.

Norway said it would send an “emergency team” to Dubai to reinforce embassy staff helping about 1,500 Norwegians registered in the city.

Nearly 6,000 people were stranded on the Indonesian resort island of Bali after flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, Qatar, were cancelled. Many were European or US tourists trying to connect through airports in the Middle East.

South Africa’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs appealed to citizens to take advantage of limited commercial flights after suspending its own evacuation plans due to airspace closures.

Scrambles to secure plane tickets continued on Wednesday as airspace closures and restrictions continued across much of the Middle East, according to flight tracking service Flightradar24. In the notifications from Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Syria, it was stated that the no-fly zones of the countries will last at least until the beginning of next week.

The airspace of the United Arab Emirates is partially closed, and Saudi Arabia continues to partially restrict routes near the Iraqi border and along the Persian Gulf. Israel prepared for a phased reopening that would allow citizens to move in, arriving early on Thursday. Jordan lifted the flight ban the night before, bringing operations back to 24 hours.

Some of the aviation announcements regarding closures allow authorities to reopen or restrict parts of airspace at short notice, depending on safety conditions; This means flight schedules can change rapidly as the conflict continues.

Commercial airlines resumed limited service, but seats filled quickly. British Airways said its flights from Muscat, scheduled for Saturday, were fully booked and that it would add services “if possible”. Etihad Airways and Emirates, based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, said their commercial flights were still suspended due to regional airspace closures, but both airlines were operating a small number of repatriation and cargo flights.

Fabio Falasca, a 28-year-old Roman entrepreneur, was stranded in Dubai with a friend when conflict broke out over the weekend. He spent Saturday night sleeping in the underground car park.

Falasca, who was in constant communication with the traveler platform of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, learned that he could go to Oman by taking a bus and then fly to Italy. Although he had already bought a direct ticket from Dubai to Rome, another sleepless night between Monday and Tuesday convinced him to accept the ministry’s offer.

He left Dubai by bus on Tuesday and headed for Oman, where he could catch a flight back to Italy.

“I can’t wait to get home and not be afraid of what’s going on outside,” Falasca said. “My only thought is to return home.”