{"id":463222,"date":"2026-03-07T21:25:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T21:25:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/463222\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T21:25:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T21:25:08","slug":"uk-government-to-charter-flight-out-of-dubai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/463222\/","title":{"rendered":"UK government to charter flight out of Dubai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government&#8217;s commercial flight will be available for a charge,<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">British nationals, their spouse or partner and children under the age of 18 are eligible to register.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Two government-chartered flights so far have returned British citizens from Muscat, Oman.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The first landed at Stansted airport on Friday, the second at Gatwick airport on Saturday. A third flight will leave Muscat on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Foreign Office said the Dubai flight will be in addition to commercial routes operating out of the UAE and will leave early next week.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The government says all passengers must hold a valid travel document and non-British dependants will require a valid visa or permission to enter or remain that was granted for more than six months.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Foreign Office will contact people directly to issue them a ticket and will prioritise those who are vulnerable, such as those with urgent medical needs.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">More than 160,000 people have registered their presence in the region with the Foreign Office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Air travel via Dubai, one of the world&#8217;s busiest airports, has been severely disrupted since Iran began launching retaliatory strikes at Gulf nations in response to the US and Israel&#8217;s offensive. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Last week, Emirates briefly suspended all flights from Dubai, which is a popular tourist destination for UK nationals. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Saturday, footage verified by the BBC showed what appeared to be a drone striking within the perimeter of Dubai International Airport.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The footage, filmed from an industrial area just south of the airport, captured an explosion close to a terminal building. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The UAE government has not commented on the incident. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Throughout the week, British people who have been stranded in the region have told the BBC about their experiences.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On 28 February, Victoria Cameron, from Larkhall in Scotland, was queuing to get into her Dubai hotel when the first Iranian missiles struck the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Then the staff said &#8216;run, run, leave your suitcases&#8217;. They rushed us all to the side of the hotel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Our phones were going off, saying &#8217;emergency, emergency&#8217;. We were crying, we were shaking.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Cameron arrived back in Edinburgh on Wednesday on an Emirates airline flight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Stuart Carson was staying at Fairmont The Palm Hotel in Dubai on Saturday when it was struck, causing his &#8220;whole room to completely shake&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;Once dawn broke, we started to feel a bit more comfortable with the situation and just gathered our thoughts and had breakfast in the hotel,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He arrived back home in Northern Ireland on Tuesday, after a number of earlier flights he had booked were cancelled by airlines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The government&#8217;s commercial flight will be available for a charge, British nationals, their spouse or partner and children&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463223,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-463222","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463222","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=463222"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463222\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}