Emirates, Etihad Airways and Flydubai are operating with delays across their Dubai and Abu Dhabi hubs as regional tensions continue to disrupt flights through Middle East airspace.

The three Gulf carriers, which together connect hundreds of daily departures through the world's busiest international airport and its Abu Dhabi counterpart, are the most exposed operators to the current restrictions and rerouting requirements now affecting the region.

For Emirates, the disruption reaches deep into a network built around Dubai International as a global connecting point between Europe, Asia, Africa and Australasia. When airspace over the region tightens, the airline cannot easily restructure flows that depend on tight banks of arriving and departing widebody services.

Flydubai, the Dubai-based low-cost carrier flying a single-type Boeing 737 fleet on shorter regional sectors, faces a different exposure. Many of its destinations sit within or adjacent to the affected airspace, leaving limited room to reroute without adding fuel burn and crew duty time that narrowbody economics absorb poorly.

Etihad's Abu Dhabi operation shares the structural challenge: a hub-and-spoke model that concentrates risk in one geographic corridor. When corridors close or require avoidance, the network effects propagate faster than they would for point-to-point carriers.

Passengers booked on the three carriers should expect schedule adjustments, longer flight times on affected routes, and the possibility of cancellations if conditions deteriorate further. The situation remains fluid, and the airlines continue to adjust operations as airspace availability changes.

Carriers have not indicated how long the disruption will persist, and further escalation or de-escalation in the region will determine whether delays remain manageable or deepen into wider schedule cuts across the Gulf's three major hubs.