Hi Dubai friends,

Welcome to Week 11, Edition 124

Whilst this situation is ongoing, I’ll change the usual format of the newsletter to give a few pointers to help you make informed decisions about travel, imminent or future, to Dubai and the UAE.

As it’s a fast-moving and fluid situation, it’s taking more time than usual researching, checking information and capturing, any donations to the Tip Jar are more than welcome. 🙏

🔗 Tip Jar

PS. A big thank you to everyone who has tipped previously. It really helps, not just in the financial sense, but it’s especially good to know people value the effort and advice. 😄

PS. You can always email me here also.

Please note: some links in this newsletter may be affiliate links, and will be denoted with an asterisk (*). This is a link to a partner site that may pay me a commission - at no further cost to you - and if so, helps to support me & this newsletter. For more info, please see Disclosure and Policies

If you don’t want to wait until each Friday, I also post updates in two other places during the week :-

🔗 Eat Drink Stay Dubai (Web)
🔗 Eat Drink Stay Dubai (Instagram)

I may also post on other socials, primarily YouTube - so please subscribe on there too (as I’m trying to grow my channel!).

youtube.com/@eatdrinkstaydubai

Some venues, restaurants, and attractions have temporarily closed in Dubai - citing ‘official’ or ‘government advice’ - whilst other attractions remain open, some offering discounts and incentives.

Aquaventure and Wild Wadi are currently open, with the former offering some discounts and promotions on their socials this week. Global Village closed, apparently until at least next Thursday.

If you are planning to travel to Dubai, especially for a dining package, please check the status of hotel restaurants, as several have temporarily closed. As always, call a hotel rather than email.

Note that some Marriott hotel’s official ‘dining’ pages do not show the temporary closures, but I saw Maya, Toro Toro, and Zengo had closed via their official Instagram profiles. Google Maps also seems to have been updated to reflect, e.g. Barasti.

Marriott have issued a ‘Travel Advisory’ on the landing page of their hotels, which covers up to 31 March.

It’s not all bad news though. With the disruptions around, many merchants are offering all sorts of incentives and promotions to stimulate business.

Day Pass deals at some places have reduced in price - check this list from Dubai from Family Travel Guide.

ENTERTAINER released a new, temporary product called One Heart 2026, which was taken up and vastly oversubscribed, so much so they issued 100,000 products.

Although these were aimed at residents, don’t overlook the discount code EDSD2026, which will allow 10% discount on any ENTERTAINER 2026 paid product.

Given around half a million passengers pass through the three major GCC airports or ‘hubs’ (AUH, DOH and DXB), ‘transit traffic’ is a key focus for their flag carriers.

This article from Analytic Flying is an excellent read about the strategy of international hubs, particularly Dubai. Additionally, their post on X about “arrival banks” is also worth a read.

Whilst stopover passengers- i.e. tourists - are also important to local economies, Dubai is far, far worse affected on that score than Doha or Abu Dhabi. Consequently, it’s more important for Emirates to get back to full schedules than Doha or Abu Dhabi, which is why they’re ramping up quicker.

On the 12th March, Emirates flew 324, Etihad 43, FlyDubai 133, and Qatar Airways 46 flight operations.

It’s also easier for other carriers to restrict schedules to Dubai and the region (as we’ve seen this week with Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, KLM and Lufthansa, to name but four) because they are only on a single leg, rather than a ‘through and through’ connection.

Emirates has stated they hope to achieve the target of ‘all scheduled destinations’ ASAP - but note, there’s a difference in a full schedule of flights to a full schedule of destinations.

London Heathrow may be one destination, but a full schedule of flights there from Dubai is six outbound per day.

Another factor to consider is that winter airline schedules change around the end of March, so some airlines are suspending operations earlier than normal, even if effectively, it’s only a drop of a few weeks of flights. British Airways, for instance, won’t restart Abu Dhabi until the winter now.

Right now, Emirates will be ‘burning the midnight oil’ day and night trying to consolidate their crews, equipment and passengers to fly efficiently and effectively.

From a passenger’s point of view, it’s too easy to say, “ Why don’t Emirates just fly X amount of planes?”, as the average passenger won’t appreciate all the ‘moving parts’ involved in ‘planning’. Not only does Emirates have to get their planes flying, they need to consider both the backlog of travellers as well as future travellers.

Whilst airlines have been resuming limited flight schedules, partly due to ‘secure corridors’, they have to optimise every possible factor. That could include :-

This is why planners will look at the schedules, and will often pick a ‘flight pair’ to go, where the plane could work ‘turnaround’, i.e., land and return rather than wait for hours before flying back or swap to a second plane. This was how Emirates restarted runs to Doha, by picking two outbounds and two inbounds close together on the schedule. Obviously, that’s far easier to do on a short regional hop than long-haul, though.

Similarly, when planners have to consider connecting flights, such as London - Dubai - Singapore, they will try to minimise transit times, or even consider moving passengers from different flights to one scheduled flight.

Last but not least, it’s impossible to predict the future, so it really is like ‘Whack-a-Mole’ for the planners, as once they have a plan in place, things can change for the worse or the better.

The reason I’ve waffled on a bit about hubs and forward planning is to try to help you see things from the perspective of the airlines, which in turn may help if you have to make any decisions about travel.

What I would always say when trying to make a big decision is to step back, and think about what your priority is, that is, the one thing that you base your decision on in isolation that makes everything else irrelevant.

From there, you can decide what the best strategy is to achieve that goal.

Let me give one example: someone contacted me and they’re booked to go to Dubai in the coming weeks. They’re aware of Emirates currently implementing a policy until the end of March that may offer refunds or rebooks. Because of the heat, they don’t want to travel any later than the end of April.

So, their priority is - they want to ensure they can travel to Dubai, within the next few weeks, rather than refund or rebook later in the year.

My tip was - each day, look at the flight schedules via the apps like FlightRadar24 or Flighty or live departures of the home airport. See which flight/s go each day - is it the same one, do they change each day and what happens with the flight number they are booked on?

For example, this is the Emirates Flight Schedule checker.

If the flight they are booked on is flying without disruption, it’s likely it will do by the date of travel, and thus they take no action. If not, as they get closer to the date and Emirates issue an updated policy to cover their planned dates of travel, all they need to do is rebook onto the flights they know are likely to go.

This is only one instance, and there are many other priorities for other travellers - some may want to cancel outright, some rebook, or travel somewhere else.

What I would say that’s worth being mindful of - airlines will want to focus on a ‘block’ of flights, usually up to 2-3 weeks, rather than schedules later on. This allows them to prioritise and focus. And of course, things can be dramatically different by that time.

As mentioned previously, airlines want to consolidate travellers onto reduced flight schedules to maximise load factor, and so it helps to know which passengers still want to fly, or wish to rebook, or cancel - and that’s why they often short-term policy changes or waivers.

When things go sideways in travel, travel providers have to ‘triage’ and focus on the immediate problems in front of them. In the case of Emirates, they have issued a temporary, updated policy to focus on a ‘block’ based on booking dates.

The ‘ideal scenario’ in the perfect world is that only travellers affected in the dates specified by Emirates (or any travel provider or carrier) contact them. This allows them to work without distraction, especially at times when they will be receiving increased communication.

However, the real world works differently. Sometimes, payments are due for travel packages. Sometimes, we want instant gratification and attention. Sometimes we just want to take a chance and hope that the current policy will work for us, even if the dates may be later than the current ‘policy block’.

My aim is always to try to give the best advice possible, and so what I’d say is - you can always try your luck. As I often say, “shy kids get no sweets” - and what’s the worst that can happen? Even if you hang on the phone for ages, and they say no, you’re no worse off.

Conversely, I am aware of travellers who were due to travel later in the year, outside of the current dates Emirates are looking at, who have managed to receive refunds. And congratulations to them for trying and winning.

When it comes to situations like this, just as with the pandemic, it’s worth having an understanding of :-

Although I covered this last week (check the “Dubai and Iran Updates” post on Eat Drink Stay Dubai), the first thing to understand is the specific situation you find yourself in.

If you have booked a package holiday (i.e. flight and car, flight and hotel etc.) you have stronger consumer rights than if it was flight only, due to PTR 2018. If this is your situation, and the agent you’ve booked with is ABTA, you should be entitled to a change to ‘similar’ or a refund.

If you have booked flight only, and it’s a non-EU carrier, you have less rights when it comes to travel disruption. So if you’re booked on Emirates, and there are disruptions to schedules, you would broadly be at the behest of ‘goodwill’ rather than consumer rights. That is, what goodwill Emirates may offer due to short-term amended policies, such as what we’re currently seeing until the end of March.

If you are dealing with agents or third parties, that may often bring an added level of complexity because you have to consider the airline//hotel policies but also the booking conditions/consumer rights. This is why I will often tip, if you have to deal with an agent, it can often be more productive to write to a director at the registered business address rather than try to deal with the customer-facing call-centre.

If you’re asking for a discretionary decision that may depend on goodwill, you may find for instance the customer teams are ‘toeing the line’ and repeating scripts, whereas a director may be able to make a discretionary decision and have greater authority. Plus, if things don’t resolve themselves and you need to take further action, e.g. legal or small claims court or Section 75, you have a record of the communication that may help.

Last but not least, remember - “you catch more bees with honey than vinegar”. That is, be polite, firm but fair, perhaps even deferential rather than entitled and demanding, and you may get more success.

Note - please check the last section for ‘useful links’, as well as the post on the website - as that has all the CMA and PTR 2018 information.

Given the way oil prices have risen, there may be an impact on flight costs.

But first, ignore the media reports saying how expensive flights are - it’s not necessarily true. What those scare-mongering journalists don’t consider is, if everyone looks at the same time at websites, demand spikes which often triggers ‘surge pricing’ (just like with Oasis tickets!).

Supply and demand often comes into play, the theory being less flights that more people want, pushes the prices up. But as Emirates and others are flying more of the ‘backlog’ back, and transit passengers are moving through, the demand levels are settling as supply is rising.

Looking at it another way, whilst some Dubai hotels at present are dropping prices, will they always stay so low? And for how long if people start looking again for future travel plans?

What may be most likely to be affected are surcharges, rather than the actual fare rates, which could also make redemption flights (using points/miles) costlier - as some carriers add on heavy amounts.

Currently, FCDO are advising against ‘non essential travel’ to Dubai.

Cast your minds back to the pandemic; once travel opened up, as Dubai was one of the first destinations to allow inbound travel, all of sudden everyone found ‘essential’ reasons to travel (especially the dreaded influencers and blaggers!).

What they either were not aware of, or chose to ignore, is the impact of travel insurance being negated should there be any disruptions or claims. Speaking in very general terms, if FCDO advises against travel (even non-essential), your travel insurance may be invalidated.

There is a secondary consequence, and this is where nuance and context come into it. Many travel agents use FCDO travel advice to make business decisions on - e.g. whether they will offer refunds, or allow rebooking or issue credit notes.

Depending on what you’ve booked, and with who, FCDO Travel Advice changes may or may not change much with regard to your booking, especially if it’s say, a flight only booking direct with an airline.

Where it can also get complicated is if you’re booked with a third party (i.e. a travel agent) and an insurance company is also involved, they may make decisions about your travel plans based on FCDO advice - such as this couple in Thailand. In their case, they’re following the advice given to them by providers, although there are other flights they could take, but it would likely be at their own cost.

It sounds boring, but this is why it’s always important to know all the ‘small print’ of your travel booking, what impacts what, and most of all, who to deal with. For example, if you know your insurance can cover disruption, if your provider is not ‘playing ball’ then you may have the option to pay out, keep receipts and claim at a later date.

According to the property page on World of Hyatt, Park Hyatt Dubai will,

“ Park Hyatt Dubai will undergo renovations and temporarily suspend its operations as of May 1, 2026, for approximately six months. All reservations made through Hyatt channels, for stay dates between now and the closure date, will be honored. Guests with affected reservations will be contacted by Hyatt guest relation services and will be offered to amend their stay dates or to rebook at other Hyatt branded properties in Dubai. Otherwise, existing reservations will be cancelled without any fee. Park Hyatt Dubai is scheduled to reopen in November 2026 and offer a renewed luxury experience for guests, with more updates expected to be shared closer to the time. Thank you for your understanding.“

🔗 Park Hyatt Dubai

FCDO Travel Advice for the UAE 👉 https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/united-arab-emirates

This is what happens if you don’t read up FCDO Travel Advice 👉 https://youtube.com/shorts/fNoxhRMi5Gs?si=DEBuZ1DSLpo5wpHf

Simon Calder (always one of the best sources of travel information) writes about his experience getting back to London including disrupted stopovers, detours and what the future may hold for travel. (Archived page here).

Simon also offers advice on when to accept refunds, and what to do if stranded.

A thread about ‘future travel’, especially payments coming due, from Trip Advisor Dubai Forum (with some good advice and real-life experiences in).

British Airways allows rebooking of Middle East flights until 31 May.

All the flights cancelling or amending schedules to the Gulf.

The current situation is costing the travel industry £450 million per day, but a ‘quick recovery’ is expected.

Virgin Atlantic cancels all Dubai flights, but you can rebook on Emirates.

Etihad - Flight Status checker 👉 https://www.etihad.com/en/manage/flight-status#travelupdates

Etihad Holidays - free cancellations, up to 31 March 👉 https://www.etihadholidays.co.uk/important-information-regarding-the-current-situation/

Etihad Hub - cancel, rebook up to 31 March 👉 https://www.etihadhub.com/en-ae/news/waiver-for-guests-impacted-by-the-middle-east-situation

ABI Travel Insurance FAQs for the Middle East situation 👉 https://www.abi.org.uk/products-and-issues/choosing-the-right-insurance/travel-guide/travel-insurance-faqs-for-middle-east-conflict/

Money Saving Expert Forum, your rights explained if stranded due to ME situation 👉 https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6657896/mse-news-stranded-abroad-or-travel-disrupted-due-to-the-middle-east-conflict-your-rights-explained

Money Saving Expert (main article on travel rights due to ME situation/disruption) 👉 https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2026/03/middle-east-conflict-travel-rights/

Citizens Advice - cancelling a package holiday 👉 https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/holiday-cancellations-and-compensation/cancelling-a-package-holiday/

Love Holidays - FAQ ref Conflict in the Middle East 👉 https://www.loveholidays.com/faq/conflict-in-middle-east/

ABTA - FCDO is advising against travel, can I get a refund? 👉 https://www.abta.com/help-and-complaints/frequently-asked-questions/foreign-commonwealth-development-office-fcdo

Emirates Holidays - Travel Update 👉 https://www.emiratesholidays.com/gb_en/pages/travel-updates

Emirates - now operating 👉 emirat.es/nowoperating

Emirates - book flights 👉 emirat.es/bookflights