UAE | Traffic and Transport
'We're just not going to let delay spoil our holiday in Dubai'
Thousands of stranded passengers were left waiting after an airline accident left Dubai International Airport closed for almost eight hours yesterday.
- By Sunita Menon, Daniel Bardsley and Abbas Al Lawati, Staff Reporters
- Published: 00:00 March 13, 2007
- Image Credit: Fuad Ali/Gulf News
- Passengers at Fujairah airport as many incoming flights were rerouted to land at nearby airports.
Dubai: Thousands of stranded passengers were left waiting after an airline accident left Dubai International Airport closed for almost eight hours yesterday.
The airport was closed following an accident on its only operational runway, when a Dhaka-bound Biman flight BG006 skidded off the runway, causing 27 injuries.
Many flights were diverted to other airports in the UAE and elsewhere in the Gulf, leaving passengers temporarily stranded far from their destinations.
Meanwhile, hordes of travellers were stuck at Dubai International Airport when all outgoing services were suspended, and incoming flights diverted.
"We are just not going to let the delay spoil our holiday in Dubai," said Ann Viney, a Briton who was in Dubai on a short visit with her husband.
"We had a lovely stay here and this delay is not going to upset us. These kinds of things happen," she added.
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Kamyar Broumane, a Belgian businessman, missed his 8am connecting flight from Dubai to Paris when the Emirates flight from Tehran to Dubai he was travelling on was diverted to Fujairah.
Diverted
"We were due to land at 6.40am but the pilot was making circles around Dubai. Everybody thought it was traffic, but then he announced we were being diverted because there had been an incident - he said a plane was trying to take off but a wheel broke and it slid off the runway."
Ed Barnfield, a general manager from the United Kingdom was due to travel on an Emirates flight to Nice at 7.30am.
"There are a lot of people here waiting and tempers have frayed a little bit," he said, adding there was "a scrum" around the information desks at the airport with passengers struggling to find out what was happening.
Jason Alexander, who had been waiting for a friend since 7am, said the information screens did not show the diversions until 9.45am.
"The screens continued to say the flights were on schedule. I didn't know that my friend's flight was diverted until he sent me an SMS saying he was in Muscat," he said.
Passengers were also seen queuing up at the information desk at the departure area to enquire about their flights.
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