Gulf crisis: my assessment of the aviation impact
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 2 March 2026
⏱️ 6 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Just before I boarded a flight to China, I set out the scale of the problem caused by the closure of the three biggest Middle East air hubs – And considered what might happen next.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to today's independent travel podcast with me, Simon Calder. It's Monday the 2nd of March. |
| 0:09.9 | I need to stress that I am recording this on Sunday the 1st of March and therefore events may have overtaken me. |
| 0:18.9 | But I wanted, just before I get on board a plane here at Istanbul |
| 0:23.6 | Airport, destination China, to give you my thoughts on how this might unravel. |
| 0:30.6 | Now, bear in mind, these are extraordinary times. |
| 0:35.6 | If you want to look for the last example when we saw disruption on this |
| 0:40.9 | scale, and I'm not counting COVID here, then you have to go back to the Icelandic volcano in 2010. |
| 0:49.2 | I'm going to say seven million people were affected by that. We're not at that stage yet, but it is definitely |
| 0:57.1 | heading in that direction because just bear in mind that every day that there are no flights going in and out of the world's |
| 1:06.9 | busiest international airport, Dubai, and Doha, and Abidabi, that is two and a half thousand |
| 1:14.6 | flights and about half a million people. The numbers are really staggering. Every hour, 20,000 people |
| 1:23.5 | land and depart from those airports. And you have a massive problem building up. What's happening is |
| 1:31.6 | that people's holidays are ending and so they are being added to the back of the queue at the airport. |
| 1:39.3 | It's a desperate position for them to be in. So what is the exit strategy going to look like? |
| 1:46.9 | Now, government, particularly in Abu Dhabi, is very aware of the plight of people and obviously |
| 1:53.9 | wants to do the right thing. Clearly, it's going to be quite bad publicity for the whole region. |
| 2:03.2 | Tourism absolutely critical. |
| 2:07.6 | The main question is, when is the disruption going to stop? |
| 2:13.3 | Wow, cricky. Geopolitics in the Middle East. That's my specialist subject. It certainly isn't. |
| 2:21.5 | I'm just looking at what is proposed. Dubai indefinitely closed. Emirates is kind of saying that sometime on Monday it might start. Doha, they're going to give an update at 6 o'clock, British time |
| 2:27.7 | tomorrow. And Etihad and Abu Dhabi Airport, they're saying, well, we might be opening before that. And I hope that |
| 2:38.4 | the flight ban, also the travel advice from the foreign office saying, do not go to these places, |
... |
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