At least four airports hit in Iranian strikes | Official Website of Louis Velazquez, entrepreneur, finance guy and tech innovator

As the strikes following a joint U.S.-Israeli attack that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei continue into the second day, at least four airports across the Middle East have been targeted.

With large swaths of the Middle Eastern airspace also closed, Operation Epic Fury has led to severe travel disruptions in the region. According to flight-tracking data from Cirium, 2,766 flights into and out of countries including the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Israel have been canceled on Feb. 28, while 1,579 subsequent flights were called off on March 1.

Late on Saturday night, Zayed International Airport (ABU) in Abu Dhabi was hit by an Iranian drone that resulted in one death and seven injuries. The extent of the damage to the terminal is currently unknown as airport authorities posted on X (formerly Twitter), urging the public “to avoid circulating rumours and to rely only on official sources.”

Airports in Dubai, Bahrain, Kuwait hit in Iranian drone attacks

The busiest airport in the world for international traffic, Dubai International (DUB) has been closed since Saturday, Feb. 28, to all incoming and outgoing flights. Dramatic footage of airline workers and other employees left behind after the airport was evacuated running from a plume of smoke quickly spread on social media after debris from an intercepted drone hit one of the concourses.

“A concourse at Dubai International sustained minor damage in an incident, which was quickly contained,” Dubai Airports said in a statement. “Due to contingency plans already in place, most of the terminals were previously cleared of passengers.”

Amid Iranian attacks on a U.S. naval base in Bahrain, Bahrain International Airport (BAH) adjacent to the capital was also hit by a drone strike on Feb. 28 that the country’s interior ministry said “result[ed] in material damage without loss of life.”

A parallel drone strike on Kuwait International Airport (KWI) caused minor injuries to several airport employees and what the country’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation classified as “limited material damage” to Terminal 1 of the passenger building, Anadolu Agency reported.

Bahrain International Airport was among those hit by retaliatory strikes from Iran.

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What is happening to flights in the Middle East on March 1

While the damage to the airports in Kuwait and Bahrain has been limited in scope and the situation was quickly put “under complete control,” the strikes caused widespread panic among anyone left behind after passengers were evacuated earlier in the day, as well as those urged to find immediate shelter in the city amid ongoing drone attacks.

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The closure of Dubai International, which sees an average of 250,000 passengers on a given day, and other Middle Eastern airports throughout the weekend has left hundreds of thousands of passengers traveling through the Middle East stranded in countries around the world.

Airlines such as Emirates, Lufthansa, KLM, Delta Air Lines, and American Airlines have all suspended their services to cities including Dubai, Doha, and Tel Aviv, among others.

King Khalid International (RUH) in Saudi Arabia is one of the few airports in the entire Middle Eastern region that remains operational.

A very limited number of flights were rerouted through Saudi Arabian airspace to navigate the travel disruptions that could last multiple days, according to The Sunday Guardian.