Several Singapore-bound travelers stuck at the Hamad International Airport in Qater’s Doha told Channel News Asia they received little information about alternative flights and were not offered accommodation.
One of them, Melodie Yip, had been transiting through Doha and was originally scheduled to fly out on Monday night with Qatar Airways.
Her flight was canceled, and after spending nearly eight hours in line to rebook, she was assigned a new departure for Tuesday afternoon, only to learn that this flight had also been scrapped.
Yip said she is now waiting for another available flight but does not expect to depart by Tuesday night.
“When I heard the second flight was cancelled, I was very, very anxious because I didn’t want to go through that … eight-hour queue again,” she shared, adding that support from fellow Singaporeans in line offered some comfort.
She now hopes to leave on Wednesday, though she remains cautious about possible further disruptions.
“I think Hamad International Airport and Qatar Airways were not prepared for such a crisis, which is unexpected for a world-class, award-winning airline and airport,” she commented.
Long lines also formed at Dubai International, the world’s busiest airport, where around 145 flights were cancelled and over 450 delayed, according to data from FlightRadar24, according to Reuters.
Operations at the two airports slowed to a crawl on Tuesday after Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait temporarily closed their airspace a day earlier following Iran’s strike on a U.S. military base in Doha.
The shutdown forced airlines to cancel or divert hundreds of flights, leaving a backlog of stranded passengers. Airports across Dubai also briefly suspended operations amid the disruption.
Also at Doha’s Hamad International Airport, Amanda Tate, a nurse from Adelaide, Australia, described the situation as “surreal.” Tate had just concluded a conference in Italy and was preparing to return home when the incident unfolded.
“We started looking on the internet and seeing there had been some missiles launched. At that time, we didn’t know what had happened,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Qatar Airways said it was working to restore its flight schedule but warned of continued disruptions through Thursday. Dubai International also confirmed that it had resumed operations after a brief pause but advised passengers to expect more delays and possible cancellations.
Airports in the Middle East rank among the world’s busiest, acting as vital transit points for flights linking Europe and Asia. Dubai alone handled 92.3 million passengers in 2024, averaging more than 250,000 travelers per day.
