DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AFP) — Traffic at Dubai airport remained disrupted Thursday with 237 flights cancelled, a day after an Emirates plane crash-landed and shut down the Middle East’s busiest airport for several hours.
Dubai Airports authority said it cancelled 116 arriving flights and another 121 departing since the accident just after midday Wednesday, while 44 planes were diverted to nearby Emirati airports.
The airport resumed operations with reduced capacity around four hours after a Boeing 777 flying from India with 300 people on board crash-landed and caught fire.
All passengers and crew were evacuated safely but an Emirati firefighter died while putting out the blaze.”DXB (Dubai International’s code) continues to operate with one runway with higher priority for arriving flights and wide-bodied aircraft to maximise the utilisation of available capacity and ease congestion inside the terminals,” Dubai Airports said in a statement.
It expected operations to return to normal in two days. “The airport is expected to be on recovery mode for the next 48 hours with efforts in full swing to clear the backlogged flights,” it said.
DXB is the world’s largest air hub in terms of international passengers, and is the base for Emirates, which serves more than 153 destinations.