Qatar Airways was among the airlines affected as 170 flights were cancelled and 829 were delayed across the Middle East on the same day. Passengers moving through Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Türkiye faced the widest disruption, with Dubai International Airport the hardest-hit airport by delays.
The scale of the slowdown shows how quickly regional aviation has been pulled into the worsening security picture. Hamad in Doha was among the heavily affected airports, while carriers kept changing schedules rather than restoring normal operations.
Dubai International Airport delays
Dubai International Airport had the highest delay count in the region, putting pressure on connecting itineraries and same-day travel plans. The disruption spread across multiple airports at once, which left travelers dealing with a mix of cancellations, late departures and revised transfer plans.
Qatar Airways was operating in that same environment, with its network affected alongside other carriers across the Middle East. The article does not give an airline-by-airline breakdown for how many Qatar Airways flights were cancelled or delayed, so passengers still have to check their own bookings rather than rely on a regional total.
Airline advisories and suspensions
EASA renewed and strengthened its advisory urging airlines to avoid or exercise extreme caution over Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, the UAE and the Gulf of Oman. Emirates told families to arrive at the airport at least three hours before departure, finish security screening at least 90 minutes before boarding and reach the departure gate one hour before scheduled take-off.
Other carriers continued to trim service instead of returning to full schedules. Air Astana again suspended services to the UAE after briefly restoring them, Air Canada extended the suspension of Dubai and Tel Aviv flights through early September, and airBaltic cancelled Dubai operations until late October. Air France suspended flights to Riyadh, Dubai and Beirut, while British Airways continued to suspend flights to destinations including Dubai, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv.
Renewed US-Iran instability
The disruption came as renewed US-Iran instability and airspace restrictions kept affecting aviation across the Gulf and surrounding regions. Over the past week, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan all faced missile and drone attacks, and earlier in the week two UAE supertankers were struck, leaving one crew member dead and eight others injured.
On Friday, Iran reportedly launched strikes targeting several Gulf nations and hit a power and desalination facility in Kuwait. On Friday, US military bases in Syria were also targeted and several vessels in the Strait of Hormuz reportedly came under attack. That sequence helps explain why airlines kept adjusting schedules instead of treating the latest cancellations as isolated events.
For passengers, the practical move is to treat same-day travel as fluid and to check for rebooking messages before leaving home. Qatar Airways is still operating in a region where delays are cascading faster than schedules can settle, and the unanswered question is how long the airline-specific disruption will last.
