Some flights depart Middle East amid travel chaos as US urges its citizens to leave region

Some flights depart Middle East amid travel chaos as US urges its citizens to leave region Select departures organised as US state department warns Americans to leave on commercial flights ‘due to safety risks’ US-Israel war on Iran – live updates Travellers stranded by a widening war in the Middle East began departing the United Arab Emirates onboard a small number of evacuation flights on Monday, as governments around the world worked to extract their citizens from the region. Etihad Airways and Emirates, the airlines based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, respectively, and the budget carrier FlyDubai said they would operate limited flights after the chaos and damaged caused by Iranian missiles and drones. Since Saturday, at least 11,000 flights into, out of and within the Middle East have been cancelled, affecting more than 1 million passengers, according to the aviation analytics firm Cirium. The travel chaos looks set to continue, with the US president, Donald Trump, saying on Monday that the conflict had been projected to last four to five weeks but that it could go on longer. Late on Monday the US state department called on Americans to immediately depart more than a dozen countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE, amid the worsening conflict triggered by US-Israeli strikes against Iran on Saturday . Mora Namdar, the state department’s assistant secretary for consular affairs, said US citizens should leave using available commercial transportation “due to safety risks”. The US has not organised its own evacuation flights. In the UK, the prime minister, Keir Starmer, said the government was sending rapid deployment teams to the region to support British nationals there, and wanted “to ensure that they can return home as swiftly and safely as possible”. He told MPs: “We’re asking all British citizens in the region to register their presence so we can provide the best possible support and to monitor the Home Office travel advice, which is being reg...