London, Mar 02: Global air travel chaos intensified on Monday as the US and Israel continued to bombard Iran, which struck back at targets across the Middle East, leaving airports closed and stranding travellers including those in faraway areas who were scheduled to transit through the region.

Governments were scrambling to help their citizens get home after the conflict erupted on Saturday, throwing travel plans into turmoil.

Tourists, business travellers and religious pilgrims found themselves stuck unexpectedly in hotels, airports and on cruise ships, with no word on when many airports would reopen or when flights to and through the Middle East would resume.

Governments told stranded citizens to shelter in place.

Airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, which are important hubs for travel between Europe, Africa and the West to Asia, remained closed after they were all directly hit by Iranian strikes.

Emirates, based in Dubai International Airport, one of the busiest in the world, said it will resume operating a “limited number of flights” on Monday evening, without providing more details. It previously said it was suspend flights until 3 pm local time Tuesday.

“We are accommodating customers with earlier bookings as a priority,” it said and advised people not to go to the airport unless they were notified.

Doha-based Qatar Airways said Monday its flights remain suspended, with its next update planned for Tuesday morning.

Flight tracking site FlightRadar said on X that 15 aircraft from Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways have taken off “within a three-hour window, likely helping to clear transit passengers who have been stuck there since the start of the conflict”.

Etihad had also previously halted flights Tuesday afternoon and suspended operations at its hub, Zayed International Airport.

The flight turmoil stretched even farther, with Jordan announcing a partial closure of its airspace.

More than 58,000 Indonesians were stranded in Saudi Arabia, where they were visiting Islam’s holy sites of Mecca and Medina on an Umrah pilgrimage during Ramadan.

“It has become an urgent humanitarian and logistical issue,” said Ichsan Marsha, spokesperson for Indonesia’s Ministry of Hajj and Umrah, which is coordinating with Saudi authorities, airlines and Indonesian travel operators to arrange alternative routes or rescheduled flights.

About 30,000 German tourists are currently stranded on cruise ships, in hotels or at closed airports in the Middle East and cannot get back home because of the conflict.

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul said late Sunday a military evacuation wasn’t possible because of airspace closures and that the government was looking into other options to help bring citizens home.

He said everyone should follow advice from German travel agencies and local authorities.

The German Travel Association called on tourists to “remain at their booked hotels as a matter of urgency” and not “make their own way to the airport or to a neighbouring country”.

Other governments made similar recommendations.

The Czech Republic is sending two planes to Egypt and Jordan to bring home Czech nationals, Prime Minister Andrej Babis said. One will pick up 79 Czechs in the Egyptian resort town of Sharm El Sheikh who want to return from Israel. They are travelling from Israel to Egypt by bus.

The other plane will evacuate Czechs from Amman, Jordan. Babis said there are some 6,700 Czechs in the region.

Four more planes are heading to Muscat and Salalah in Oman to fly home Czech tourists.

Britain is preparing for all options, including possible evacuation of Britons in the Middle East, Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said.

“We are setting up the support systems,” Cooper told Sky News, when asked if Britain was preparing for an evacuation. “We’re working on every possible option.”

More than 102,00 Britons in the region have registered their presence with the UK government since the conflict erupted on the weekend.

In Asia, thousands of travellers were stranded on Indonesia’s tourist island of Bali because international flights were cancelled.

Bali’s international airport said at least 15 flights, including eight departures and seven arrivals, on routes to Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi were cancelled as of Monday afternoon. Airline data showed 3,197 departing passengers were affected by the disruptions, airport spokesperson Gede Eka Sandi Asmadi said.

Air France cancelled flights to and from Tel Aviv, Beirut, Dubai and Riyadh, while carriers from Air India to KLM suspended flights and issued advisories.

US airlines issued travel advisories and upended global transportation roiled the travel sector in financial markets early Monday, including the shares of airlines that fly globally.

United, Delta and American all slid 5% to 6% and global hotel chains tumbled. Cruise lines like Carnival fell even harder.

Iran’s attacks on its Arab neighbours on the other side of the Persian Gulf are dealing a serious, if temporary, blow to their status as key nodes on the world’s travel map.

The Gulf’s shimmering and globalised cities depend on a steady influx of flights carrying foreigners – both tourists and resident workers – and cargo to keep their economies humming.

That’s fuelled the growth of Gulf airline brands including Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways.

Those long-haul airlines and a handful of smaller carriers typically pack the skies over the Gulf and have turned their hubs into some of the busiest international airports in the world.

Now their flights are grounded along with those of other airlines whose planes were in the region when airspace was shut. Gulf airliners are scattered in airports the world over without an easy way to get home.

Dubai International Airport handled a record 95.2 million passengers last year, ensuring its status as the world’s busiest airport when measured by international travel. It’s second only to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport overall.

One of Dubai International’s concourses sustained what authorities called “minor damage” during an Iranian attack Sunday that left four people there injured.

Authorities in the UAE are paying all “hosting and accommodation costs” for affected passengers, the General Civil Aviation Authority announced in a statement carried by official Emirati news agency WAM.

It said that as of Sunday the country had handled around 20,200 passengers affected by rescheduled flights.

Bangkok, Mar 02: The US and Israeli attacks on Iran rattled world markets on Monday, with U.S. futures falling more than 1% and oil prices soaring, though gains for defense contractors and oil companies helped limit losses in Asian trading.

The futures for the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average sank 1.7%.

The price of a barrel of US benchmark jumped 9% to $73 per barrel. Brent crude jumped nearly 10% to nearly $80 per barrel.

European markets opened sharply lower. Germany’s DAX dropped 2.2% to 24,737.47, while in Paris the CAC 40 lost 1.9% to 8,413.91. Britain’s FTSE 100 slipped 1% to 10,800.63.

Shares fell in most Asian markets but they rose in Shanghai, where higher oil prices lifted some oil company stocks such as CNOOC, China Petroleum & Chemical and PetroChina to the 10% limit.

The Shanghai Composite index climbed 0.5% to 4,182.59, while in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng lost 2.1% to 26,059.85.

Japan’s Nikkei 225 index initially fell more than 2%. It closed 1.4% lower at 58,057.24. Offsetting other losses, shares in defence-related stocks including Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and IHI Corp. advanced.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 ended flat, at 9,200.90.

In India, which could face disruptions to its access to oil due to the hostilities, the Sensex fell 2.1%.

Taiwan’s benchmark lost 0.9% and Singapore’s dropped 2.3%. In Bangkok, a major tourism destination for the Middle East, the SET fell 3.1%.

Markets were closed in South Korea for a holiday.

The price of gold, which usually is viewed as a safe haven for investment in times of uncertainty, rose 3.4% to about $5,426 per ounce.

The US dollar also gained, rising to 157.20 Japanese yen from 156.27 yen late Friday. The euro slipped to $1.1708 from $1.1762.

Traders are betting the war will disrupt oil supplies from Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. Attacks throughout the region, including on two vessels travelling through the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow mouth of the Persian Gulf, have constrained oil exports to the rest of the world.

“Roughly one-fifth of global oil and LNG (liquefied natural gas) flows squeeze through the Strait of Hormuz. This is not an obscure canal. It is the aorta of the global energy system,” Stephen Innes of SPI Asset Management said in a commentary.

A prolonged war would likely result in higher prices for other fuels and gasoline and could cascade throughout the global economy, adding to production costs overall.

Prolonged interruptions to oil flows through the Middle East would have “huge implications for oil and LNG and every market everywhere if it occurs. Energy is an input to ALL production,” RaboResearch Global Economics & Markets said in a report.

Iran exports roughly 1.6 million barrels of oil a day, mostly to China. It may need to look elsewhere for supply if Iran’s exports are disrupted, another factor that could increase energy prices.

The size of China’s strategic oil reserves is a state secret. But a recent report by John Kemp of Base Research estimated them at 1.1 billion to 1.2 billion barrels –- equivalent to around 100 days or just over three months of imports.

The war’s impact on markets was muted somewhat because the attacks were anticipated, with a massive buildup of U.S. forces in the Middle East. So traders had adjusted their positions to take that risk into account.

The conflict has shifted attention, for now, away from issues surrounding artificial intelligence that have dominated markets in recent months.

On Friday, the S&P 500 fell 0.4% to finish just its second losing month in the last 10. The Dow industrials dropped 1.1%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.9%.

Treasury yields fell in the bond market as investors sought safer places for their money.

“When markets are fragile, they do not need a knockout blow. They just need another weight on the bar,” Innes said.

Also hurting the broad market was a report Friday showing that inflation at the U.S. wholesale level was at 2.9% last month, much higher than the 1.6% that economists expected.

That could pressure the Federal Reserve to hold off longer on its cuts to interest rates. Lower rates would give the economy and prices for investments a boost, but they risk worsening inflation.