Emirates led the recovery push on April 23, logging 410 flights in a single day — its first time surpassing the 400-flight mark since February 27 — as the UAE’s four major carriers collectively crossed 1,000 daily operations for the first time since the Middle East conflict disrupted regional aviation.
Flightradar24’s Gulf airline recovery index recorded a combined 1,015 flights across Emirates, flydubai, Etihad Airways, and Air Arabia on that date. The figure represents roughly 67 percent of the 1,513 flights the carriers operated on February 27, the final day before hostilities involving the US, Israel, and Iran broke out.
Emirates President Sir Tim Clark, speaking at the CAPA Airline Leader Summit in Berlin, said he was confident that robust travel demand would drive the airline’s recovery and help Dubai bounce back from the effects of the regional conflict. Clark added that he was not concerned about losing market share to competing carriers.
Behind Emirates in the April 23 count were Etihad Airways with 229 flights, Air Arabia with 190, and flydubai with 186. Emirates separately noted that its 410 flights that day amounted to close to 80 percent of its pre-war output.
The recovery across Gulf aviation has accelerated following the ceasefire declared by the US and Iran after six weeks of fighting, which had shut down airspace across the UAE and neighboring countries and caused travel demand to the region to fall sharply.
Kuwait announced Thursday the reopening of its airspace after two months of closure stemming from Iranian attacks. Kuwait Airways and Bahrain’s Gulf Air remain absent from Flightradar24’s recovery index, as airspace restrictions had kept both carriers out of the tracked dataset. Qatar Airways is also included in the broader index alongside the four UAE airlines.
