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A British couple paid £1,500 to be driven hundreds of miles across the Middle East in a “disco bus” to board a flight to London from Oman, in an effort to escape the escalating war in the region.
Though the UK government’s first repatriation flight from Muscat failed to take off on Wednesday due to a technical issue, a British Airways (BA) flight from the Omani capital landed at Heathrow’s Terminal 5 shortly before 9am on Thursday.
Among the passengers were consultants Sarah, 54, and Ed Short, 58, from Kent, who were met by emotional family members as they arrived back in the UK.
The couple had been on holiday in Dubai and were due to leave the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on Saturday, but their plane home was grounded when airspace closed due to the ongoing US-Israeli war with Iran, which has seen Gulf nations hit by missile strikes.
They returned to their Dubai accommodation and spent 10 hours sheltering in the basement during a period of airstrikes, Ms Short said. When they got word that some flights were resuming, they acted fast and sought out any possible route home.
The relieved couple returned to London on Thursday morning, having paid £1,500 for a taxi to take them by road almost 300 miles from Dubai to the capital of Oman for their flight, which set off on Wednesday night.
After touching down in London, Mr Short told The Independent: “The FCDO [Foreign Office] advice was stay in place, but we were just like, ‘Yeah – out of dodge.’”
The vehicle that provided their means of escape to the Omani capital was not the most conventional, with Ms Short describing it as “the craziest taxi you’ve ever seen”.
She said: “It was a disco bus, it had twinkly lights on the ceiling, madness. I don’t know where they got it from, but he put drinks in for us. It was comfortable.”
The journey took the couple around seven hours, and they were trying to stay in touch with their family back home. But when they got to the border with Oman, their family began to worry.
Ms Short said: “We had no internet, so the kids have been trying to track us, and as soon as we got to the Omani border, they couldn’t track us any more. So they thought we’d been arrested because they didn’t hear from us again until we got to the airport, but it was absolutely fine.
“I’m sure there are people in much worse situations, but we’ve got a hell of a story to tell at dinner parties.”
Mr Short said they were met with “chaos” when they arrived at Muscat airport to board their flight, as large crowds of people had gathered, all desperate to flee the Middle East.
Some 130,000 Britons have registered their presence in the region, and the Foreign Office has said it is working with airlines to bring them back. The government said the failed evacuation flight is set to leave later on Thursday, and two more flights are planned for the coming days.
He said: “We met loads of people who’d been booked on the government repatriation flight, lots of people who just said ‘We haven’t got a booking, we just turned up.’
“People were there, they were expecting to go at 11, obviously, [and] as you know, they never left. They were trying to board them before us. It was a bit messy.”
Mr Short had nothing but praise for the BA staff, however, and said the overwhelming feeling on the flight was one of relief.
Ms Short’s sons and their partners, as well as her sister, were at Heathrow on Thursday morning to greet them when their plane landed two hours behind schedule at 8.41am.
“[Walking through the arrival gate] was great. The family were cheering, and it was like ‘Wow.’”
As he walked towards his car for the final stage of his journey home to Canterbury, Mr Short said: “I’ve got to get out of here and extend my parking, but now they’ll probably try and charge me extra to get out.”
