{"id":458890,"date":"2026-03-05T12:38:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458890\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T12:38:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T12:38:10","slug":"total-shambles-passenger-hits-out-at-delayed-uk-charter-flight-from-middle-east-as-minister-responds-uk-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/458890\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Total shambles’: Passenger hits out at delayed UK charter flight from Middle East – as minister responds | UK News"},"content":{"rendered":"

A British passenger due to leave the Middle East on a delayed plane chartered by the government has called the situation a “total shambles” and said some people were having “panic attacks”.<\/p>\n

The flight to evacuate Britons stuck in the region due to the Iran war was scheduled to depart Muscat in Oman at 11pm local time on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

However, it never took off and the passenger said they had been told the pilot needed to rest.<\/p>\n

Follow live updates on the Middle East crisis<\/a><\/p>\n

The Briton – who wanted to stay anonymous – told Sky News: “[The] check-in process took about four hours due to technical issues. We then got taken to the plane on a bus but had to stay on it for about one-and-a-half hours.<\/p>\n

“No consular staff were present airside. They just left us. People started getting very agitated, banging windows, panic attacks.<\/p>\n

“There are dozens and dozens of vulnerable people, young children and families.”<\/p>\n

A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The UK government charter flight was not able to depart from Oman yesterday as planned due to technical issues. The flight is now expected to depart later today.”<\/p>\n

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Image:
\n A German government flight landed in Frankfurt this morning. Pic: Hannes P Albert\/picture-alliance\/dpa\/AP<\/p>\n

People who were due on the flight were taken back to a hotel.<\/p>\n

The passenger told Sky News they had been told that “due to slow check-in and delays, the pilot had clocked his hours so needed to rest”.<\/p>\n

“We have been told the plane will take off later today [Thursday] once the pilot has rested,” they added.<\/p>\n

“The stress this has caused these vulnerable people is incredibly serious.”<\/p>\n

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Share<\/p>\n

\n Brits stuck in Gulf states land in London\n <\/p>\n

Border security minister Alex Norris told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Mornings<\/a>: “There have been a number of commercial flights that have gone yesterday. We have chartered a flight out of Oman that wasn’t able to leave last night for operational reasons.<\/p>\n

“We expect that to be leaving today, we expect there to be multiple more flights following that.<\/p>\n

“So I know people are feeling stressed; our people are on the ground, including at the airport, are helping them support them through that.<\/p>\n

“We’ve helped them make sure they’ve found hotel rooms that we paid for to support them through that process.”<\/p>\n

Mr Norris added: “I know it’s frustrating, but these things obviously are fast moving and do take a little time to stand up.”<\/p>\n

Planes chartered by other European governments have already brought home some of their citizens.<\/p>\n

A German Lufthansa plane from Oman landed in Frankfurt early this morning, while Spanish and Italian flights have also made it home.<\/p>\n

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Share<\/p>\n

\n Brits stuck in Dubai ‘just want to get home’\n <\/p>\n

BA and Emirates flights land in UK<\/p>\n

Air traffic in the Middle East has been thrown into chaos by Iran firing drones and missiles at US bases in the region in retaliation for attacks on its country.<\/p>\n

However, a small number of commercial flights are now operating and the prime minister said on Wednesday that more than 1,000 Britons had managed to get home.<\/p>\n

Read more from Sky News:
Stranded in the Middle East? What you need to know<\/a><\/p>\n

British Airways is among those that have been able to restart a few services back to the UK. Its flight from Muscat in Oman landed at Heathrow shortly after 8am on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Emirates flights from Dubai also arrived at Heathrow and Manchester this morning.<\/p>\n

Muscat, which has been largely unaffected by the conflict so far, has emerged as a key location for people trying to leave the Middle East.<\/p>\n

It can be reached by road from both Dubai and Abu Dhabi with journeys of about 300 miles (482km).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A British passenger due to leave the Middle East on a delayed plane chartered by the government has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":458891,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-458890","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\/458890","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=458890"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/458890\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/458891"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=458890"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=458890"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=458890"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}