‘It’s such a relief to be home’: Brits on first flight from Dubai to Birmingham share their ‘emotional’ journeys

One woman in the arrivals hall was waiting patiently with a bunch of flowers in her hand. She told the Express and Star she was waiting for her daughter who had been on holiday with her friend in Dubai. She said that her daughter would be really emotional to have got home.

Travel to the region is still restricted, with flights to gulf and connecting flights to India still cancelled. So those on the flight to Birmingham Airport today were some of the lucky ones.

Another family in the arrivals area had driven four hours from Folkestone to pick up their relative who had been on holiday with his family since Friday (27 February) but decided to cut it short due to the conflict. One of the family members told the Express and Star that their relative was really happy to have landed back in Birmingham.

A man from Nottingham, whose 10-day holiday to Dubai with his partner had turned into 13-day stint due to a cancelled flight, said he was "lucky enough" to be on the flight today. He said "everyone was nervy for about two hours for the first part of flight until we got out of that airspace".

He added that he had received "stay safe messages from people" but "really all I wanted was a message from our rep telling us we were safe". Pamela Chamber, from Sutton Coldfield in Birmingham, who has been on holiday for a few days in Dubai with her husband, said "it's such a relief to be home" and she was "rushing back" to reunite with her children.

Stephen Ripley, also from Sutton Coldfield, was on the flight to Birmingham today. He had been to Bangkok and landed in Dubai on Saturday 28 February, where he was then told that his connecting flight back to Birmingham was cancelled.

He told the Express and Star: “We were really well looked after. There was a bit of chaos getting out of Dubai Airport on Saturday but Emirates put us up in a hotel, paid for the food and transport. We didn’t really see any bombs or hear anything, we could hear the Air Force going over.

“Then we heard Emirates were resuming flights and we managed to get on the one today. You could hear the fighter jets going over and sometimes you could hear missiles and things.

"There was an air raid when we were going to the hotel and an alert came up on everyone’s phone. It’s unnerving because you’ve got all these sirens going off but when we looked out the windows on the bus you can’t see anything, so it didn’t feel particularly dangerous, it was just unnerving with the alerts on people’s phones."

An Emirates flight to Dubai from Birmingham Airport also took off today. It was scheduled to depart at 13:40pm but it eventually left more than an hour later at 14:56pm. Emirates has also operated limited flights to other airports in the UK including Edinburgh, London Heathrow, Gatwick and Manchester.

However, in its latest update today, Emirates said its flights have been further suspended until 7 March. The statement reads: "All scheduled Emirates flights to and from Dubai remain suspended until 2359hrs UAE time on 7 March, due to airspace closures across the region. We are accommodating customers with earlier bookings as a priority on these limited flights.

"Customers transiting in Dubai will only be accepted for travel if their connecting flight is operating. Please do not go to the airport unless you have been notified directly by Emirates or hold a confirmed booking for these flights.

"Emirates continues to monitor the situation, and we will develop our operational schedule accordingly. The latest flight updates will be published on our website."

Elsewhere, the first government flight is going to leave Oman on Wednesday evening as the government scrambles to evacuate citizens from the region. The Foreign Office said the flight will depart the country’s capital, Muscat, at 7pm and is available for British nationals, their partners and children under 18 with a valid travel document.