Repatriation flights soar as nations race to bring citizens home from Middle East

EXPLOSIONS in the sky woke Cory McKane on Saturday, turning a quick visit to Dubai before a friend’s wedding in India into a tense, multi-day search for away out of the United Arab Emirates as the Iran war expanded.

- By Rio YAMAT & R,j. Rico The Associated Press

PEOPLE disembark from a military aircraft as they arrive in Slovakia after being evacuated from the Middle East, Tuesday, March 3, 2026.

(MARTIN BAUMANN/TASR VIA AP)

With few options, McKane and his friends eventually drove a rental car to the Oman border, where taxi drivers were charging up to $650 to take people to Muscat International Airport. The journey to Muscat took 10 hours but paid off: McKane secured a last-minute flight to India, arriving Wednesday exhausted but relieved.

Hundreds of thousands of travelers found themselves similarly stranded in the Middle East after Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Saturday and Iran struck back on Gulf states and Israel. With much of the region's airspace closed and airstrikes intensifying, governments from North America and Africa to Europe and Southeast Asia continued their race Wednesday to bring their citizens home.

Officials chartered jets or deployed military aircraft, routing stranded travelers through Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia—key exit points where planes could land and take off.

A plane carrying French citizens from Oman and then Egypt landed in Paris early Wednesday, the first of several expected repatriation flights organized by France. A group of students returned to Italy after their government evacuated them from Dubai. More than 200 people from 16 countries departed Iran by land through neighboring Turkmenistan despite the former Soviet country’s strict visa policies.

Even as repatriation efforts gained momentum, many travelers faced the choice of waiting or trying to secure seats on the diminished number of commercial flights operating.