UAE Flight Disruptions Persist on Oct 23: Saudi and Tel Aviv Routes Cancelled, While Lufthansa, SWISS and Philippine Airlines Resume Dubai Services

Passengers travelling from the UAE on Friday, October 23, faced continued flight disruptions, concentrated on services to Saudi Arabia and Tel Aviv. Dubai International Airport listed multiple arrival cancellations and delays, and airlines operating from Abu Dhabi and Sharjah also posted schedule changes. Not all of the disruption is tied to the regional security situation: some of it comes from operational, technical or weather-related causes.

In Saudi Arabia, the death toll from Wednesday's attack on King Fahd International Airport in Dammam has risen to two, a Saudi citizen and an Indian resident, according to GACA; eight others were injured, including two Indians. GACA said airport operations have resumed and air traffic has returned to normal. Saudi coalition spokesperson Major General Turki Al-Maliki said nine drones targeting Madinah, Riyadh and the Eastern Province were intercepted and destroyed. Cancellations continue to affect Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Madinah.

Emirates has cancelled all listed flights between Dubai and Dammam, Riyadh and Jeddah, while its Dubai–Medina services (EK807, EK2537, EK809 and return flights EK808, EK2538, EK810) are shown as having arrived. Emirates also cancelled two Dubai–Taipei flights due to weather, and Etihad's EY898 and EY899 to and from Taipei were delayed by Super Typhoon Champi. Emirates has suspended its codeshare operations with flydubai to and from Tel Aviv until further notice, and Dubai–Tel Aviv services remain affected following the September 30 security incident involving flydubai flight FZ1073.

At Dubai International, cancelled arrivals from Dammam include flydubai FZ884/Emirates EK2461, FZ870/EK2485 and FZ864/EK2279. Delayed arrivals include flydubai FZ992 from Saint Petersburg (scheduled 8am, revised to 11.46am) and FZ970/EK2145 from Moscow Vnukovo (3.50pm, revised to 5.05pm). At Zayed International Airport in Abu Dhabi, several Etihad and Air Arabia Abu Dhabi arrivals are delayed, including EY447 from Manila, EY610 from Tel Aviv and 3L044 from Kathmandu. Passengers are advised to confirm flight status with their airline before travelling to the airport.

Lufthansa will resume flights from Dubai to Munich and Frankfurt on October 25, followed by SWISS services to Zurich on October 27. Up to 36 weekly flights between Dubai and Europe are returning, with more services to launch in the coming weeks.

Philippine Airlines has resumed Dubai flights, joining Cebu Pacific, with each carrier operating four weekly flights between Dubai and Manila.

The day's picture shows two different clocks running at once. Security-exposed sectors, meaning the Saudi domestic and cross-border links and Tel Aviv, are still being cancelled or suspended carrier by carrier, while European and Philippine routes into Dubai are being reinstated on fixed dates. For a hub carrier, restoring long-haul feeder traffic matters commercially even while regional sectors stay unstable, because the two draw on different aircraft, crews and slot positions.

Disruption also arrives from mixed causes. Weather on the Taipei sectors and ordinary delays on Russian and Asian arrivals sit alongside security-driven cancellations, so a delay on a given board is not automatically a sign of the wider situation. Codeshare suspensions, such as the Emirates–flydubai arrangement on Tel Aviv, show that partnership structures are adjusted alongside the schedules themselves.

The next concrete markers are the first Lufthansa Dubai rotations on October 25 and the SWISS Zurich service on October 27. Whether the Saudi cancellations ease will show first in the Emirates and Etihad listings for Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam.