State charters flight to evacuate Maltese stranded in the UAE
The flight will bring home stranded Maltese nationals 'in the coming days'
Updated 9.21pm with the prime minister's statement that government will pay for the flight.
A charter flight from the United Arab Emirates will bring home stranded Maltese nationals in the coming days, Foreign Affairs Minister Ian Borg has announced.
The government will foot the costs.
Some 215 Maltese nationals living in the Middle East have contacted Malta’s Consular Directorate for assistance after the war triggered by US-Israeli attacks on Iran.
In a video address on Wednesday afternoon, Borg said Malta had secured the services of a private airline to return Maltese nationals in the UAE, where 169 of those who reached out are based.
“If everything goes to plan and safety is guaranteed, the flight will leave in the coming days from Dubai’s airport,” adding that the individuals concerned would be informed of the details.
“Our priority is that all Maltese citizens are safe and return as soon as possible,” Borg said.
Prime Minister Robert Abela later announced in a Facebook post that the government will foot the costs of the flight.
Aviation analytics company Cirium said that of the more than 36,000 flights scheduled to fly to or from the Middle East, more than 20,000 had been cancelled since Saturday.
As airlines resumed limited flights out of hubs including Dubai and Riyadh, governments also chartered planes to bring home citizens affected by the turmoil, which stranded tens of thousands of travellers worldwide.
Times of Malta is informed that more than 1,650 Maltese nationals are known to be living in the Middle East.
Evacuations
A Russian emergency services flight evacuated 117 citizens, including 54 children, from Azerbaijan after they left Iran overland across the border.
France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain and the United States also organised special evacuation flights, from countries including Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
On Tuesday, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani said the government was continuing to fly back stranded Italians after a first charter flight from Muscat, Oman, brought home 127 Italian citizens on Monday.
France said it would organise further evacuation flights, but government minister Eleonore Caroit called it "a complex process, with constant uncertainty because we are in a very fluid situation".
An evacuation flight from Abu Dhabi repatriated 175 passengers to the Spanish capital Madrid.
The United States said more than 9,000 Americans had returned from the region since Saturday, including more than 300 from Israel.
The State Department urged Americans in all of the Middle East from Egypt eastward to leave for their own safety.
Israel reopening airspace
As of Wednesday, Cirium data indicated that air traffic was virtually completely grounded in Qatar and Bahrain. In Israel, nearly three-quarters of flights were cancelled and just over two-thirds in the UAE.
Israel's transport minister said the country would gradually reopen its airspace overnight between Wednesday and Thursday, "subject to security developments".
The initial flights will be to repatriate Israelis, a transport ministry spokesperson told AFP, saying there would be no departures for now.
The reopening had initially been scheduled for next week, but was moved up "following security assessments with professional and security experts," said Transport Minister Miri Regev.
Sharon Kedmi, director general of the Israel Airports Authority, told reporters the re-opening will begin "very cautiously, with one aircraft per hour during the first 24 hours -- a narrow-body aircraft".