EditEvacuations of Western nationals from Gulf states become near-impossible as regional airspace remains closed
Passengers report sleeping on airport floors for days, repeated flight cancellations, and dwindling supplies of food and medicine at some terminals
As the Israel-Iran conflict spills into the Gulf, commercial air travel across much of the region has effectively ceased, turning planned evacuations of Western nationals into a logistical nightmare that officials on both sides of the Atlantic now openly describe as far more difficult than anticipated.
Flightradar24 data on Tuesday showed virtually no civil flights operating over Qatar, Bahrain, and large parts of the UAE, with total airspace closures in Doha and Manama FIRs still in force. Partial restrictions remain over Emirati airspace, while airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, and Bahrain have seen more than 12,300 flight cancellations since the strikes began late last week. Major hubs that normally handle hundreds of thousands of passengers daily now display rows of grounded aircraft.
We have updated our list of airspace closures and restrictions in our live blog: https://t.co/AU0KOdzprt pic.twitter.com/phcMkRkflz
— Flightradar24 (@flightradar24) March 3, 2026
Hundreds of thousands of Western citizens – including an estimated 400,000 French, over 100,000 British, and tens of thousands of Americans and other Europeans – are now stranded in the Gulf states, many at closed or severely restricted airports.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio addressed the crisis directly on Capitol Hill only hours ago. “We’ve had planes in the air, on the way, and unfortunately the airspace gets closed and they have to turn back around,” he told reporters, confirming that the State Department is “actively securing military aircraft and charter flights” for the roughly 1,500 American citizens who have requested assistance. The department has already helped more than 9,000 Americans leave the region since the weekend, many on their own initiative before commercial options collapsed entirely. Rubio’s “depart now” advisory covers 14 countries, explicitly including Qatar, Bahrain, the UAE, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia.
French President Emmanuel Macron used a televised address on Tuesday to announce that Paris is preparing organised repatriation flights, prioritising the most vulnerable among the nearly 400,000 French nationals currently in the affected zone. “We are organising, in an orderly manner, the repatriation of our citizens who wish to leave, starting with the most vulnerable,” Macron said, adding that France was also reinforcing its military presence in the UAE to support the effort.
The European Commission has publicly committed to coordinating member-state actions. A statement released on Monday confirmed that the EU Civil Protection Mechanism has been activated at the request of several countries, offering logistical support, co-financing for transport, and real-time information sharing. EU transport ministers held an emergency video conference last week to align repatriation plans. Germany, France, Belgium, Poland, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic have all announced preliminary evacuation schemes, with some already chartering aircraft from safer hubs such as Riyadh or Muscat.
Yet senior diplomats and aviation sources privately concede the gap between announcement and execution is widening. Military or charter flights still require safe corridors, overflight permissions, and ground handling at airports whose runways are increasingly dedicated to defensive operations. Iranian retaliatory strikes on Gulf targets have already forced multiple diversions and cancellations. Insurance underwriters have withdrawn coverage for most commercial operations in the zone, while fuel and crew availability have become critical constraints.
British officials are reportedly preparing one of the largest peacetime evacuation operations in the country’s history, with contingency plans that include overland convoys from the UAE and Qatar into Saudi Arabia – a route considered risky given the possibility of further missile exchanges. German crisis teams have been dispatched to Dubai, Doha, and Muscat, while smaller EU nations are leaning heavily on the Commission’s mechanism for capacity.
The human picture on the ground is stark. Passengers report sleeping on airport floors for days, repeated flight cancellations, and dwindling supplies of food and medicine at some terminals. Families with small children and elderly relatives are particularly exposed. Airlines including Air France-KLM, British Airways, Etihad, and Emirates have suspended almost all services until at least Thursday, with some extending cancellations into next week.
Aviation analysts warn that even limited resumption of commercial flights will not solve the problem quickly. Dubai and Doha serve as critical transit points for hundreds of thousands of passengers monthly; their prolonged closure creates knock-on effects across Europe, Asia, and Africa. Some carriers have begun testing narrow “safe corridors” out of the UAE and Oman, but these remain ad hoc and insufficient for the scale of the crisis.
As the conflict enters its sixth day, the question facing Western governments is no longer whether to evacuate their citizens from the Gulf, but how to do so when the skies themselves have become part of the battlefield. The hastily arranged press conference by Secretary Rubio strongly suggests that the United States either failed to issue timely warnings for its citizens to depart the Gulf region or was caught off guard by the scale and targeting of Iran’s retaliatory strikes against military installations in Gulf states.
Caption: The TUI cruise ship ‘Mein Schiff 5’ is docked at the terminal close to the old port, in Doha, Qatar, 2 March 2026. Several cruise ships remain docked in Gulf ports as airspace closures and security alerts disrupt travels. Following a joint Israel-US military operation targeting multiple locations across Iran in the early hours of 28 February 2026 and Iran’s retaliatory attacks across the region, several countries closed their airspace and airlines cancelled flights because of safety concerns and disrupted key air routes amid the escalating conflict. EPA/HANNIBAL HANSCHKE
Updated: March 4, 2026 - 06:23
