Dubai Airport struggles to resume flights after rain leaves runways flooded

Dubai International Airport, one of the world's busiest aviation hubs, remained in disarray on Thursday after unprecedented heavy rain caused planes to stall on flooded runways.

While check-ins for Emirates and Flydubai, the airport's two main operators, reopened, the airport warned that Terminal 3 was facing long queues as airlines tried to deal with cancellations and delays.

“Currently, there is a large volume of people in [área] terminal 3 check-in,” it said in a statement on its website. “Passengers should only arrive at Terminal 3 if they have received confirmation from the airline about their flight departure.”

Videos from the agency showed large crowds of passengers at the airport, which was recently named the second busiest in the world.

Storms swept across the United Arab Emirates and neighboring countries on Tuesday (16), dumping 250 millimeters of precipitation in less than 24 hours in some areas – the heaviest rainfall in the region in 75 years.

The runway at Dubai International Airport was submerged. Videos showed water gushing onto the tracks. At the airport terminals, hundreds of passengers were forced to wait while their flights were canceled or delayed.

Mohit Mehta, from Gurgaon, India, said he spent more than 30 hours at the airport after trying to catch an early morning flight from Dubai on April 16.

“[A] condition was very bad,” he told CNN. “No one was there to answer questions. It was all a fiasco. It was full of water inside the airport. A lot of leaks happening from the roof.”

Mehta added that the scarcity of food options in the airport's Terminal 1 resulted in long queues of people looking for food and water, which he said was being sold at a high price.

“There was a shortage of food and drink at the airport.”

“Desperately” in need of help

On Thursday, around 549 flights, both arrivals and departures, were delayed. The number of cancellations reached 31, according to plane tracking website FlightAware. Of the delays, 302 were Emirates flights – 65% of the UAE flag carrier's services – and 152 were Flydubai. Hundreds more were canceled the day before.

Emirates has issued an apology to affected passengers. Some took to social media complaining that they were unable to contact the airline.

“Emirates extends our sincere apologies to affected customers who have experienced delays and disruptions to their travel plans caused by poor weather and road conditions,” the airline posted on X. “We know how difficult [a situação] It’s for everyone affected,” he added.

“While some customers have been able to return home or reach their destination, we are aware that many are still waiting to board,” the statement continued. “Our teams are working hard to restore our scheduled operations as well as safe accommodations and other amenities for impacted customers at the airport.”

“Our primary concern will always be the safety of our customers and crew, and this will never be compromised.”

One X user responded that they were struggling to contact the airline after being stranded in Amsterdam when their flight to Dubai was cancelled.

“We can't reach you from literally any number in the world, Livechat is not responding,” he wrote. “We are stuck in Amsterdam and desperately need help.”

Around 134 million passengers flew through UAE airports last year, including 87 million traveling through Dubai International Airport alone.

The UAE is home to approximately 10 million people and is a hub for five airlines.

Exhausting trip”

Access roads to the airport were also affected and traffic came to a standstill. The rain fell so hard and quickly that drivers on some roads in Dubai were forced to abandon their vehicles as the water rose and the roads turned into rivers.

The storms were part of a pattern of extreme rain events emerging as the planet's atmosphere warms due to human-caused climate change. A warmer atmosphere is able to absorb more moisture and then dump it in the form of floods.

The weather conditions were linked to a larger storm system crossing the Arabian Peninsula and moving through the Gulf of Oman. This same system also brought exceptionally wet weather to Oman and southeastern Iran.

In Dubai, the rain resulted in delivery services not working and many residents were unable to leave their homes due to flooded streets, which cars and pedestrians could not access. Some residents were seen paddling canoes, and a viral video on social media showed residents waking up to a flooded street in a residential area.

Other social media videos showed water rushing through a large shopping center and flooding the ground floors of homes.

Madiha Khawaja, a tourist from London with her husband and two children, aged two and four, said she felt “powerless” trying to calm her children amid the chaos.

The rain had stopped elevators in buildings, including in some of Dubai's tallest skyscrapers. Khawaja said she spent 45 minutes climbing the stairs to her 27th-floor apartment in the heart of Dubai to find rest and shelter for her children.

The trip was “tiring,” she said, adding that “when we arrived at our apartment with hungry and tired children, we were greeted with dry taps, no drinking water, no phone service, no Wi-Fi connection.”

“The kids were hungry, and I, as a mother, was getting very anxious and upset,” she told CNN .

Cleaning Operations

On Thursday, streets between Dubai's skyscrapers were still covered in large pools of water, while residents in several neighborhoods stayed home and avoided blocked highways.

City authorities continued to use trucks to pump water from roads and clear debris blocking streets. Dubai Municipality is also asking residents to send WhatsApp to remove accumulated rainwater.

Sheikh Zayed Road, a main road connecting the entire city of Dubai has been difficult to access due to cleanups, leaving traffic congestion across the city as some metro stations remained non-operational.

In the neighboring emirate of Sharjah, 65 community service patrols were deployed to rain-affected areas as clean-ups continued. Storm damage remained visible in different neighborhoods across Abu Dhabi.

Schools will remain closed and federal workers will work from home until Friday (19), the government said.

UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan instructed authorities to “work quickly” on assessing the country's infrastructure and direct support to be provided to affected families. He also ordered the transfer of affected families to safe locations in cooperation with local authorities.