The late afternoon Emirates flight from London Heathrow to Dubai has an advertised connection to Bangkok of just one hour. Normally 60 minutes is sufficient for extricating passengers (and, separately, their checked baggage) from the world’s biggest passenger plane, the A380, and enabling them to board another SuperJumbo at a different gate at the airport that handles more international travellers than any in the world , all in the early hours of the morning. But the remarkable, unrelenting choreography that allows millions of passengers to connect every day at Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and many other hubs is under severe strain as a result of the unfolding humanitarian crisis in Lebanon .
With Russian and Ukrainian skies closed to Western aircraft, the options for flying from Europe to Asia seem to be narrowing by the day. Airlines flying from Europe to the Gulf on Tuesday night into Wednesday experienced severe disruption, with Emirates and Qatar Airways – the two biggest Middle East carriers – diverting dozens of flights. With many planes typically arriving at their destinations in Dubai and Doha several hours late, the carefully planned deployment of aircraft and crew was thrown into disarray.
Closed skies over Iraq and Iran saw some unusual manoeuvres, including an Air France jet from Paris to Mumbai that turned around over northern Iraq and flew back to Charles de Gaulle airport. British Airways , too, was affected – with a London Heathrow to Dubai plane diverting .