Nearly 1,500 Israeli passengers found themselves stranded in Dubai over the weekend after local carrier flydubai grounded its flights to Israel following Israel's attack on Iran.
"A very large number of people came here and there was complete disorder and anarchy," Israelis in Dubai said on Sunday.
Six flydubai flights were scheduled to arrive in Israel on Saturday, but the abrupt cancellation left vacationers who traveled over Sukkot struggling to find seats home.
Among the affected travelers were those returning from various destinations, including Thailand, India, Japan and Sri Lanka, many of whom left the latter due to increased terror alerts.
Although flights to Israel resumed on Sunday, not everyone could find a seat on an Israel-bound plane.
"On Friday night, I arrived in Dubai for a layover after a four-week vacation in Nepal, and then I was informed along with all Israeli passengers at the airport in Dubai that flydubai flights to Tel Aviv had all been canceled for at least 24 hours, which left us stranded all at the airport for hours," said Naama, 36, from central Israel.
"After a few hours, a company representative arrived and sent us to hotels. At four o'clock in the morning on Sunday, we received a message in the hotel rooms to leave as soon as possible because we were being picked up to the airport. We were already sure that we were getting on a flight and returning home. But after waiting here for quite a while, we were told only five flights were leaving for Tel Aviv today, and we currently do not have a seat on any of these flights."
"The chaos and frustration among the passengers was sky high," she added. "We didn't understand why they woke us up and rushed us to the airport if we didn't even have a seat on one of the flights, and for the time being, it's also unclear when we'll board a flight to Israel. We were sent back to our hotels and we're supposed to get an update later. I'm supposed to go back to work and I'm stuck here without knowing when I will leave."
Ido and his partner also found themselves in a similar situation. "There are also families with children with us, all this turmoil does not make it easy for them nor for us. Whoever arrived first, got on a flight, and those who arrived later were told to get on the next flight, and so on," he said. "We ran from line to line but to no avail, we got stuck here."
"There is no order here. This is one of my worst experiences at an airport. Instead of getting on a flight where I had a pre-booked seat, they gave priority to those who got to the lines before us. People were screaming here, children and babies were crying, everything was a mess. They just told each person to come and wait."
Flydubai resumed flights to Israel on Sunday, operating five daily flights, with plans to add a sixth flight on November 12 and an additional flight scheduled for Monday to assist stranded passengers. The airline said it is “working diligently to assist all Israeli travelers.” Passengers remain in hotels awaiting updates.
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