Dubai airport chaos after Gulf storms | BBC News

Let's start with the consequences of the heavy rains that have been felt in the United Arab Emirates and some neighboring Gulf countries, a region generally known for its hot and arid climate. Flash floods have killed 20 people in Oman and one in the United Arab Emirates, Dubai International Airport has warned. of very difficult conditions and advised some passengers not to show up because the areas were flooded with water. 300 flights were canceled on Wednesday and hundreds more were delayed after the United Arab Emirates experienced what was its biggest rain event since records began 75 years ago. Dubai is the busiest country.

The world's most important

airport

for international passengers, more than 86 million of them passed through it last year, that is, more than London Heathrow, Amsterdam and Paris. Nupa George is among the many passengers still stuck at the

airport

. He arrived in Dubai yesterday from Cairo and is trying to get there. to New Zealand we arrived at the airport this morning, we're already delayed about 3 hours and it's just absolute

chaos

in terms of the amount of people around the staff who are doing everything they can to try to mitigate the bottlenecks, but the big People's volume means that there is barely any room to breathe, uh, when you try to get through screening or passport control, most people understand that it is outside the control of the airport and the Emirate staff, although at one point during the um, when we were standing in line.

In traffic, I think I saw someone faint from the Heat and it seemed like a mini, it seemed to be a mini ball that burst, it's definitely testing people, patients, especially children, but for the most part, people have been quite. Quiet and I think everyone is tired and wants to get to their destination and let's take a quick look at the flight radar because we've heard that flights are moving again and you can certainly see it in the picture on your screens right now although clearly over there. There is still a significant backlog to clear, but flights are moving again and we heard this recently when I spoke to Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths, who said the airport will be back to full operational capacity within 24 hours .

To say this is unprecedented and uncharted territory for us we have had 254 millimeters of rain in the last three days and the normal average for this time of year is about 8 millimeters so you can see how dramatic the situation has been since that the records began. Have we seen rain of this magnitude? So it's a very challenging situation. However, teams across the airport have been working very closely with the airlines to get as many passengers out as possible and of course the big problem is that the flights have been uh. They spread throughout the region as the weather prevented planes from arriving.

However, I am pleased to report that the airport is now 100% back to operational capacity and we are slowly working to resolve the delay, the difficulty in the At the moment we have 100% operational capacity, but there is a big delay, so tell us yes about the magnitude of that delay, as the total cancellations so far have been around 700 flights in the last few days and of course, as Dubai is a paradise for very large aircraft, that means many thousands of passengers are still trying to complete their trips, so the situation remains challenging, but we are actually having more departures and that allows more flights to arrive and passengers to be rebooked on subsequent flights.

We are working very closely with all of our partners, including our hospitality partners, to keep everyone cool and give them food, water and, uh, provide the necessary well-being for everyone, obviously, it's a very difficult time, but the airport will slowly come back to its normal operations. It's been a busy morning since we reopened check-in. this morning at 3:00 a.m. for other airlines and at 9:00 for Emirates, so flights have been gradually returning to normal, but I think it will take us 24 to 36 hours to clear the remaining delay, but we are doing everything we can to take care of our customers and making sure that their needs are met, yes, because obviously in this extraordinary situation initially there were many more passengers at the airport than I would have anticipated at any time, there were some problems getting food and making sure that people had enough. supplies and so on, but what is your advice to passengers right now?

Well, I think right now what we're suggesting is that people can look at sources like airline websites and find out exactly what the status of their flight is. and only when you have a confirmed departure on time should you start your journey to the airport and please do not arrive earlier than 2 hours before the scheduled departure of the flight, otherwise we will add to the number of There are people waiting and as you say Right Anita, we can only handle a limited number of people at the airport before it gets incredibly full, so please know that keeping everyone fed and watered and looked after is obviously our priority and we are working very closely with the airlines to achieve this .

Everyone returns to their intended destination as soon as possible. Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffith is there. Well, let's take a look at the impact on the wider region now and talk to our Middle East business correspondent, Samir Hashmi, who is based in Dubai but currently in Riyadh, so Samir, you may have a possible delay in returning to Dubai given everything we've been hearing, but talk to us about the domino effect if you like what happened at Dubai International. Well, that's right, Anita, I'm one of those top passengers who can't get back to the city because there were no flights in the last few days.

It has been a huge impact, especially for the United Arab Emirates, because we have to remember two things here, one part is that the UA is the great center of financial tourism in the region, many people fly in and out of the country and many people flights to Dubai airport are those who are actually trying to catch a transit flight, so at any given time you will have 60-70% of passengers at the airport who will only be there for a few hours and will be looking to catch the next flight , whether from Asia to Europe or vice versa or to North America.

Duai airport is the busiest when it comes to international passengers because it does not have a domestic market, so there are no flights within the country. They are all international flights and 87 million passengers fly every year, so in that sense it is a massive impact. not only for the region but for the entire transportation industry because many flights have been affected. I think Paul was saying that 700 flights have been canceled in the last two days if you look since the storm started on Monday, actually that number is higher. more than 850 or 900 and although they hope to resume and clear the backlog over the next day or day and a half, I have been talking to other people and they say it could take longer, so yes, it will take a lot of time because even now in Dubai , even though the rains have stopped many streets and roads are still closed, the Metro has just partially resumed its operations, which will take a little longer, so people still cannot get to the airport. easily even though they have opened some of those roads because they were busy trying to clean them because all these streets were flooded with water for the last two days and the government has asked everyone to stay home because it will take some time.

It's time to clean up the streets clearly, this has been an extraordinary event, but what kind of learning do you think the authorities at the airport and people in the region in general will take away from this? I think it is an unprecedented event because as we have been talking about what you know, this is a record rainfall that the country has received in 75 years and clearly what this has shown is that even though Dubai is considered one of the cities most advanced modern agencies in terms of infrastructure and services, have clearly fallen short when it comes to handling a situation like this where there has been unprecedented rainfall.

This was not expected. No one saw it coming, but clearly the most important lesson for the authorities is how they improve their drainage system. How do they really plan? for the future, normally when you talk about the Middle East, not just Dubai or the United Arab Emirates, anywhere in this region, including Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, they are used to hot conditions. Helping conditions and rainfall are very little in Dubai. I've been there for five years, if it rains more than once a year that would be considered an achievement. There have been years where it has not rained and suddenly you get more than a year's worth of rain in one day, so clearly the city infrastructure was not prepared for it and even some other cities in the UAE have seen very affected because they are still flooded, many places are still flooded with water, not only the streets but also many houses, so what the authorities need to do now is find ways in which they are prepared for a situation like this because, as many experts have been pointing out, this could become a regular phenomenon due to global warming and this could become a daily and regular thing in the future.

Samir, thank you. Thank you very much for that Samir Hashmi uh in Riyadh trying to return to Dubai our business in the Middle East corresponds. Thank you.