Six-figure private charter flights, chauffeured drives, hours-long waits to cross borders: Some wealthy travelers and expats in the UAE are doing whatever it takes to evacuate the Gulf region amid air strikes and the possibility of escalation.
“Demand is definitely increasing,” Glenn Phillips, a PR and advertising manager at global charter firm Air Charter Services, told Business Insider, adding that “there are an increasingly limited number of aircraft willing and able to fly to and from the area.”
On Monday, two days after the start of the US and Israel’s war against Iran, flights out of the United Arab Emirates — whose two main airports were damaged by Iranian air strikes — were still few and far between, and major hubs, including Qatar, Bahrain, and Kuwait, had to shut down due to airspace restrictions.
That left wealthy people in financial hotspots like Dubai and Abu Dhabi — hubs for monied tourists and Western expats in recent years — scrambling to reach Oman or Saudi Arabia, two countries that had open airspace through Monday. They spent hours in the car to reach the airports, as border-crossing waits increased by the day.
It may soon get harder for travelers to reach functioning private jets. Some commercial flying had resumed from the UAE on Monday evening, but that appears to have slowed amid new missile threats. Reported attacks on the US embassy in Riyadh have similarly forced several flights to turn around or divert from the Saudi city.
In what appears to be a warning of escalating tensions that could further snowball the conflict, the US State Department on Monday night urged Americans to evacuate over a dozen Middle Eastern nations — including those that still had their airspace open to commercial and private flights, like Oman and Saudi Arabia.
Flights out for $200,000+
Charter flights can cost as much as $200,000, Jay Smedley, the owner of luxury concierge firm Dubai Key, told Business Insider. The company has arranged short-haul private charter flights to Istanbul, Cairo, and the Maldives for clients since requests began to increase on Saturday.
Flights to Europe can cost even more, with Ameerh Naran, the CEO of Vimana Private Jets, saying the firm is pricing the flights between $175,000 and $235,000.
Air Charter Services has arranged “a number” of evacuation flights — and has more scheduled on Tuesday — out of Muscat, Oman, largely for people looking to leave Dubai, Phillips said.
The trip involves a five-hour drive, plus an additional three- to four-hour wait at the Hatta border crossing, which he expects will increase.
The demand to leave the region began last week, Naran told Business Insider, adding that there was “a noticeable increase in enquiries from Friday onwards.”
“Expect long waiting queues and security check delays,” Camille d’Harambure, a general manager at luxury travel firm Lightfoot Travel, told Business Insider.
Mike D’Souza, the operations coordinator for Dubai-based chauffeur service Indus Chauffeurs, told Business Insider that the “demand appears precaution-driven rather than panic-driven.”
“There has been a clear emphasis on speed and certainty of departure, with many clients prioritizing the earliest viable routing rather than specific aircraft types or traditional preferences,” Naran said. “We have also seen increased demand for coordinated ground support to facilitate access to airports where airspace remains open.”
Phillips echoed that clients just want to get out and are not all that concerned about where “out” is.
Prices have increased with demand, Phillips added — and in some cases, even those wealthy enough to pay their way out of the Middle East are looking twice at the price tag of departure.
“Many people are taking shorter flights to places out of the region and then picking up scheduled connections for the rest of their journey to reduce full journey costs,” he said.
