As the number of travellers whose plans have been torn up due to the Gulf airspace closure continues to rise, British travellers stranded in locations around the world are having to dig deep to find alternative ways home.
Gill and Alf Oliver, farmers from Market Bosworth in Leicestershire, have spent nearly £10,000 to return to the UK after their planned flights from Sydney to Doha on Qatar Airways and British Airways were grounded.
“When we were looking at prices, it really felt as though airlines were cashing in on the situation,” Ms Oliver said.
“We’d been having a fantastic holiday since 31 January: a road trip from Sydney up to Cairns. Then Mr Trump decided he was going to bomb Iran, and the Middle East has been in chaos ever since.
“As far as we were aware, our flights were cancelled. So we started looking at alternatives, but of course, everyone else was doing the same and flights were disappearing quickly. We decided the best option was to go the other way around the world. We immediately applied for an Esta [Electronic System for Travel Authorisation] to travel via America.”
The couple eventually found seats on Qantas from Sydney to San Francisco, with a British Airways connection to London Heathrow. Although they flew out in business class, they had to return in premium economy.
“We’ve had to dip into our savings. About £9,500 for the two of us,” Ms Oliver said.
“It was my birthday yesterday and I’d been looking forward to a lovely day. Instead, we were panicking about what to do and waiting for confirmation that we’d been cleared to travel through the United States. It’s just frustrating – all the extra hours of travel.”
The additional distance of a trans-Pacific connection, compared with a flight via the Gulf, is 2,000 miles – roughly four hours in the air.
The first few flights carrying passengers have started to leave Dubai International airport as well as Abu Dhabi. But Qatar Airways has still not resumed services from its hub, Doha.
The carrier says it will give another update at 6am GMT on Wednesday.
Despite some suggestions that normal services are likely soon to resume, it will take many days to get operations to a point where passengers can get on a plane in Sydney and know there will be a connection for them to, say, Manchester.
The Gulf airlines will not want any transit passengers flying to their hubs unless their connections are guaranteed to take them away after a couple of hours.
So the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better, as half-a-million passengers per day are having their travel plans torn up.
Angela Mayhew and Sue Tannock, from Shropshire, have been waiting in and around Sydney airport for the past three days. Ms Tannock said: “We arrived here on Saturday night to catch a 9pm Emirates flight to Dubai. They boarded us onto the plane and we sat there for four hours. Then they took us off and told us they couldn’t fly.
“It took about another three hours to get through the airport and then we were told there was nothing they could do and that we needed to find our own way home.”
The pair spent almost £700 each for flights home to the UK via China. “It seems the safest way to go, said Ms Tannock. “It was the only flight we could get.”
Also at Sydney airport , surrounded by luggage after a two-month trip, were Keith Wood and his wife, Jan. The couple are from Northern Ireland and were planning to fly via the Gulf to Dublin.
Mr Wood said: “Unfortunately, we don’t have an onward flight booked yet. We’re waiting for confirmation from our travel agent about how we’ll get from Sydney back home to Dublin. As it stands, we have no flight and no accommodation and we’re waiting for further instructions.
“There are hundreds of thousands of other people in the same position, so we’re in a queue. That doesn’t help much when you’re sitting in Sydney airport in the evening with no guaranteed flight or accommodation. We understand there are many others affected, so we’re trying to be sympathetic. We’ll see what happens in the next few hours.
“Ideally, our travel agent will confirm a hotel for tonight and book us on a flight to San Francisco tomorrow morning, then on to Chicago, then to Dublin, and finally back up to Belfast. It’s a much longer journey than simply flying directly from here.”
As Mr Wood spoke, a glance from the terminal window showed an Emirates Airbus A380 across the airfield, waiting for the skies of Dubai to reopen.
As Gill Oliver prepared for her long trip, she said: “We’re relieved that we’ve actually managed to get flights, but also really, really angry. I feel so sorry for the thousands of Europeans who are probably panicking – those over in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere – desperately looking for flights home and unable to find them, or finding that they’re just too expensive.
“It’s especially awful for young backpackers travelling on their own who don’t have the funds to pay for new flights. We really feel for them.”
Read more: Iran-US war latest
