Dubai deluge disrupts Emirates. Thousands stranded, flights axed

"This week has been one of the toughest for Emirates operationally," writes Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airlines, in an open letter. He admits the response to the Dubai airport's paralysis was "far from perfect." Passengers complained about chaos for several more days.

On Tuesday, 16 April, the United Arab Emirates experienced the heaviest rainfall in 75 years. The streets of Dubai were flooded, immobilizing hundreds of cars abandoned by their owners. The airport in Dubai was paralyzed, dozens of arrivals were canceled, and passenger check-ins for departures were suspended.

Dubai is currently assessing damages, and the effects of the torrential rain at the airport were felt for several more days. Passengers who got stuck in one of the largest aviation hubs in the Middle East spoke of chaos.

"We know our response has been far from perfect. We acknowledge and understand the frustration of our customers due to the congestion, lack of information, and confusion in the terminals. We acknowledge that the long queues and wait times have been unacceptable," acknowledges Tim Clark in his open letter.

He lists that the carrier had to cancel 400 flights within the next three days and delay many more. Emirates flights were only restored to regularity on Saturday, 20 April. A task force was formed to sort, locate, and dispatch about 30,000 pieces of luggage left at the Dubai airport.

Tim Clark also writes about securing "over 12,000 hotel rooms in Dubai" so far, sending 100 volunteers to the terminal hall, issuing "250,000 meal vouchers," and providing "larger quantities of drinking water and blankets."

The torrential rains not only necessitated the cancellation of takeoffs and landings due to difficult weather conditions, but flood-infested streets prevented passengers, crew members, pilots, ground handling staff, and catering deliveries from reaching the airport.

A decision was made to suspend check-ins for outbound flights from Dubai, to "decongest" queues of those whose journey had already begun and who were waiting in the United Arab Emirates for their connecting flight.

"In order to free up resources to first and foremost manage the needs of customers most impacted by the situation, we had to suspend check-ins for passengers departing from Dubai, introduce a ticket sales embargo, and temporarily suspend the movement of connecting passengers from our network to Dubai," wrote Tim Clark.

The head of Emirates Airlines assures that the company "have taken learnings from the last few days to make things right and improve our processes". And though flights in the schedule have been operating regularly since Saturday, the effects of Tuesday's downpour will still be felt.

"It will take us some more days to clear the backlog of rebooked passengers and bags, and we ask for our customer's patience and understanding," we further read.