Dubai International Airport’s flight information showed delays on several flydubai services arriving from Central Asia. A flight from Almaty, Kazakhstan, scheduled to land at 7.30am was running 52 minutes late, while a service from Tashkent, Uzbekistan, due at 7.20am was delayed by 64 minutes.
A flydubai service from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, was pushed back from a scheduled 7.50am arrival to 9.07am. Other flydubai arrivals from Moscow and Yekaterinburg in Russia and Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan were also expected to reach Dubai behind schedule.
An Emirates service from London Heathrow, scheduled to arrive in Dubai at 6.40am, was rescheduled for 8.30am, extending the disruption beyond routes from Central Asia and Russia.
The delays were concentrated mainly on inbound services. Flights departing Dubai International on Monday morning were operating largely to schedule, while services to and from Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi were also running mostly normally as of about 8am.
Monday’s delays followed a difficult Sunday for passengers travelling through the UAE, when about 46 flights were reported delayed or cancelled across airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Services from Eastern Europe and Central Asia were among the most heavily affected.
Dubai’s departure board had also shown disruption on Sunday, including delays to Emirates flight EK004 to London Heathrow and flydubai services to Moscow, Samara, Tashkent and Yekaterinburg. Some delays stretched into the following day: a Kenya Airways service to Nairobi, originally scheduled late Sunday, was moved beyond midnight, while a SpiceJet Mumbai departure scheduled for Sunday morning was listed for Monday morning instead. Passengers faced a mixture of cancellations, rescheduling and late operations.
Sunday’s cancellations included flydubai’s FZ1502 from Catania, Emirates flight EK413 from Christchurch, an Air India Express service from Kochi and SpiceJet flight SG5060 from Mumbai.
Several Russia-linked services experienced substantial delays. Flydubai flights FZ988 and FZ966 from Moscow’s Vnukovo airport were almost three hours late, while FZ970 from Moscow was delayed by almost two hours. Another Moscow service, FZ990, was about one hour and 24 minutes behind schedule, and FZ992 from St Petersburg was delayed by two hours and 12 minutes.
Etihad Airways flight EY858 from Sochi was delayed by more than 18 hours after an airport closure in the Russian city, the airline said. The disruption underscored the impact that temporary airport restrictions in Russia can have on aircraft rotations and onward schedules to the Gulf.
Central Asian routes were also affected on Sunday. Flydubai flight FZ1304 from Astana was delayed by 52 minutes, while FZ1736 from Almaty was one hour and 12 minutes late. Its Ashgabat service, FZ732, was delayed by two hours and 45 minutes. An Air Arabia service from Tashkent was delayed by two hours and five minutes, while an Uzbekistan Airways flight from the city was 37 minutes late.
Delays also extended to South Asian routes. Emirates flight EK541 from Ahmedabad was one hour and 15 minutes late and EK505 from Mumbai was delayed by 39 minutes. Flydubai services from Dhaka, Kathmandu, Kabul, Faisalabad, Chittagong and Colombo were among those operating behind schedule, with the Kabul service delayed by one hour and 53 minutes. Etihad’s EY213 from Delhi was one hour and 37 minutes late.
The disruption comes as flight schedules across parts of the region remain subject to operational changes. The UAE General Civil Aviation Authority on September 24 suspended flights operated by Iranian airlines to and from the country until further notice. The authority said the measure followed restrictions affecting Iranian carriers’ use of airports in several countries.
That suspension is separate from many of the individual delays recorded over the weekend. Airport and airline information indicated that disruption also reflected problems affecting routes and airports outside the UAE, including severe interruptions at Russian airports.
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