{"id":456125,"date":"2026-03-03T23:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/456125\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T23:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T23:47:09","slug":"british-boy-back-in-uk-after-being-stranded-in-dubai-airport-amid-airstrikes-air-transport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/456125\/","title":{"rendered":"British boy back in UK after being stranded in Dubai airport amid airstrikes | Air transport"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British boy who spent three nights stranded in Dubai<\/a> airport is among the latest tourists to arrive back in the UK since conflict engulfed the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Ahmad Ali, 12, from Swindon in Wiltshire, spent three nights in the airport while travelling back from Pakistan.<\/p>\n

Emirates staff had been looking after him since the airstrikes started at the weekend.<\/p>\n

His parents and younger sister, Noor, tearfully greeted him at Heathrow airport\u2019s arrivals gate on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

His mother, Hafsa Ali, said: \u201cIt was very terrible for us because he is only 12 years old and he was alone. Thanks to Emirates, they looked after my son. I can\u2019t express my feelings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we realised he would be delayed in Dubai it was terrifying and we were looking at the news and social media to see what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahmad said: \u201cIt was so terrible but I was with Emirates and they wanted to take care of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The schoolboy added he was \u201cso happy\u201d to be home.<\/p>\n

A couple with a three-year-old daughter who camped out in an abandoned nightclub were also on Emirates flight EK8001, which landed at Heathrow after a delayed departure from Dubai.<\/p>\n

Ourania Righelato, from Barnet, pictured at Heathrow airport on Tuesday. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\n

Ourania Righelato, 32, from Barnet, north London, said she stayed in the building in an attempt to shelter from the missile strikes with her husband, Jay, and daughter, Annabel.<\/p>\n

She said: \u201cWe didn\u2019t know when we would come home. Our family was watching the mainstream media and they were petrified.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were sleeping in an abandoned nightclub with beds put together and we had a little one with us, our daughter, she\u2019s three. We had no idea when we would come home at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first night we were just sleeping on the floor because the hotel was not prepared for it. The next day they were so accommodating and we can\u2019t fault them but obviously to be home is just unbelievable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Air travel in the Middle East has been severely disrupted since Saturday, with thousands of flights cancelled, after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran, which retaliated with attacks across the region.<\/p>\n

Magda Papadimitriou, 40, from Greece, who was stuck in Dubai for five days, said: \u201cIt was very scary. Dubai doesn\u2019t have shelters, it doesn\u2019t have that kind of stuff, [but] they tried to make us feel less worried.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to go home because we feel safe there. You don\u2019t know how this will escalate in the coming days so it was very hard for us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British boy who spent three nights stranded in Dubai airport is among the latest tourists to arrive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456126,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-456125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456125"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456125\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}