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Etihad will resume a limited flight service out of Abu Dhabi from Friday, as air travel across the region slowly returns after a week in which tens of thousands of flights were cancelled.
Emirates will also begin connecting passengers in its Dubai hub, which is back to operating at a quarter of its normal capacity.
The returning schedules come as German carrier Lufthansa said it had seen a sharp increase in demand for its long-haul routes to Asia and Africa by passengers avoiding flying through the region, which remains in the grip of conflict even as air travel returns.
An Air France flight on Thursday repatriating French citizens had to turn back after missile fire over Dubai, while Qatar’s airspace remains closed.
Both Etihad and Emirates have been running some repatriation flights in the past days, but normal services have remained suspended because of closed airspace and the conflict.
Etihad “will resume a limited commercial flight schedule from 6 March 2026, operating between Abu Dhabi and a number of key destinations”, it said on Friday.
“The decision has been taken in co-ordination with relevant authorities following extensive safety and security assessments,” it added.
Emirates said that it was also restarting some scheduled services to take passengers through its airport to other flights, rather than just returning stranded passengers home.
“Customers transiting in Dubai will only be accepted for travel if their connecting flight is operating,” it said. “Please do not go to the airport unless you hold a confirmed booking for these flights.”
Air traffic at Dubai airport is back to a quarter of its capacity before the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, as travel out of the region begins to pick up after almost a week of disruption.
Some 310 planes took off or landed at the airport, which was the world’s busiest, on Thursday, according to data from Flightradar24. This was double the 161 on Wednesday, and a quarter of 1,257 last Friday, the day before the attacks started.
Qatar Airways, which has been running a limited number of flights from Oman, is still unable to fly from its home base in Doha, because airspace remains closed.
About one-third of journeys between Europe and Asia involve changing at Gulf airports.
On Friday, Lufthansa warned the war in the Middle East had shown that the high volumes of flights through Gulf hubs was a “geopolitical Achilles heel” for the airline industry.
The German group is exploring plans to lay on more flights to destinations such as Singapore, India, China and South Africa in response, but warned that the conflict had increased uncertainty for the industry.
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“The war in the Middle East proves once again how exposed air traffic is and how vulnerable it remains,” said chief executive Carsten Spohr.
Spohr, who has previously chafed at perceived unfair competition from Gulf-based airlines, said the conflict “makes it even more important not to further disadvantage European airlines and hubs”.
Spohr is among airline executives who have lobbied the European Commission to scrap an aviation deal with Qatar amid corruption allegations against a former senior EU official.
Lufthansa on Friday reported record revenues in 2025 of €39.6bn, up from €37.6bn in the previous year. The group’s net income fell slightly to €1.3bn from €1.4bn in the previous year. Earnings were expected to significantly increase again this year, despite greater uncertainty.