Passengers seen at the Tabuk airport after a flydubai aircraft that was bound for Israel from the United Arab Emirates was diverted to Saudi Arabia after transmitting emergency signals, in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia, in this screen grab obtained from a video dated September 30, 2026. Photo: Reuters
Israel will begin repatriation flights on Friday (October 2, 2026) to bring back passengers stranded in the United Arab Emirates after commercial travel between the two countries was suspended in the wake of the attack on a pilot by his copilot who tried to crash a Tel Aviv-bound flight this week.
The effort to get Israeli passengers home comes as authorities in Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and beyond are grappling with the fallout from the incident on board the flydubai flight Wednesday that has raised questions about the state of aviation security and further unsettled a Middle East already shaken by the ongoing US-Iran war.
Nothing is publicly known about the motive of the copilot who came close to crashing the aircraft, which had departed from Dubai earlier on Wednesday (September 30, 2026), and killing all 182 aboard. A regional investigation is underway.
The UAE has cancelled all flights to Israel, complicating travel for hundreds of passengers who fly between the countries on a typical day.
Israel and the UAE agreed on the repatriation flights, beginning on Friday (October 2, 2026), according to an Israeli official who was not authorised to comment publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity. Earlier, the national carrier El Al had said the UAE was holding up the necessary landing permits to allow it to fly into Dubai.
The Ben Gurion International Airport in Tel Aviv listed carriers Arkia and Israir with flights scheduled to arrive from Dubai late Friday and early on Saturday (October 3). El Al was expected to fly passengers from Dubai to Israel on Sunday (October 4).
Dubai has been a popular destination for Israelis since Israel and the United Arab Emirates established ties in 2020 as part of the Trump administration’s Abraham Accords to normalise ties between Israel and Arab countries.
Mr. Trump says he’ll hit Iran very hard if it had a hand in the attack
Published – October 02, 2026 05:31 pm IST
