Middle East Airspace Diversions/Cancellations

[FlyingKangaroo]

We are meant to fly to Paris end of month and back mid-April, revenue tickets in Y on VA operated by QR, and had successfully upgraded the DOH-SYD sector with points (will be a big pity to lose that mais c'est la vie).

With QR operating only a tiny handful of flights over the next few days and no plan in sight to resume even limited normal operations, we've been looking at alternatives this week but absolutely nothing makes sense or is worth the $4500+ per pax in Y just to meander around France and Switzerland for a few weeks, even factoring in one hotel stay that's not refundable.

Emirates is offering fee-free refunds for flights through the end of month and after combing through recent flight status history of each of the sectors, decided to book SYD-DXB-CDG-DXB-SYD with minimal layovers in DXB on a combination of flights that have all been operating daily over the last week. It's not a guarantee to get there, but the trip isn't worth spending more on, so if both QR and EK don't pan out, it was not meant to be.

In which case, we're also booking a refundable trip to Fiji as Plan C and will settle for coughtail commiseration as far away from Europe as possible.

Hooray for putting excess flights on the credit card whose statement period just started over.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Etihad appears to be looking ahead already at how they can try to convince people to book with them with more confidence once this is (hopefully soon) over...

 

[MEL_Traveller]

From Europe/UK, they would do free re-route, but not from anywhere else though.

Plenty of traffic on other forums confirming EK is doing the same for pax ex USA as well.

So maybe as far as EK is concerned it’s more extensive.

 

[FlyingKangaroo]

Intended Emirates schedule through March 28: Emirates Maintains Reduced Operation 15-28MAR26 — AeroRoutes.

For ex-Australia, this means, compared to normal:
SYD: reduced 3x --> 1x daily (CHC tag continues)
MEL: reduced 3x --> 1x daily
PER: 1x daily maintained
BNE: 2x --> 0, suspended until March 30, no souk for you

Over in NZ, DXB-AKL and SYD-CHC 1x daily maintained (link doesn't show CHC but confirmed via OAG; SYD-CHC has been operating throughout even on its lonesome anyway).

Full schedule tentatively to resume from March 29.

 

[elanshin]

I don't think we're going to see an "end" anytime soon.

More drone attacks on Dubai overnight. This is not "normal" as much as the Emirati are trying to downplay it for UAE and the rest of the region.

Ukraine is being asked for anti-drone help and technical abilities, should also say everything we need to to read between the lines about the situation.