Dubai Restricts Foreign Airlines To One Flight Per Day, Causing Uproar

It has obviously been an incredibly challenging several weeks for airlines in the Middle East, given the impacts of the Iran conflict. Not only have airlines largely had to suspend operations on safety grounds, but there’s also the bigger question of whether travelers will feel as comfortable on Gulf carriers going forward, even as things normalize again.

Anyway, while carriers in the Gulf are hoping that things get better from here, that’s far from a sure bet. So Dubai is taking what can only be described as an extreme stance when it comes to the normalization of flights being resumed.

Dubai caps foreign airline service through May 31

A few weeks ago, we saw Dubai ban all foreign airlines. This came at a time when fuel tanks near the airport were being blown up, so I think we can all sort of make sense of that on safety grounds. However, now there’s a new policy in place, as reported by Reuters — through May 31, 2026, Dubai has restricted foreign airlines to offering a single flight per day to the city’s airports.

Per a note from Dubai Airports, “carriers continue to be limited to one rotation per day, until capacity allows more to be ​facilitated,” and “additional slots will be allocated if capacity is available.”

As you’d expect, a policy like this isn’t being well received by some airlines. For example, an airline like United wouldn’t care, because even if it did fly to Dubai right now (service is suspended), the airline has only one daily flight. Meanwhile for Indian airlines this has much bigger implications, since some of them have dozens of flights per day to Dubai, and the UAE is often their biggest international destination.

Groups representing Indian airlines are demanding that the Indian government take action, and impose reciprocal policies against airlines based in Dubai, like Emirates and FlyDubai. Suffice it to say that restricting Emirates to one daily flight to India would have major implications, if implemented.

Is this policy just protectionist, or what’s the logic?

Understandably, I think there’s some skepticism as to whether this policy from Dubai is simply intended to protect the local airlines, or actually has any logic beyond that. As I see it, there are two issues — restricting foreign airlines as such, and then also the way it’s being done.

To address that second point first, if you are going to restrict foreign airlines, I think the system being used makes zero sense. Sure, reduce capacity, but it should be proportionate to pre-conflict capacity. In other words, it shouldn’t be that an airline with 1x daily flights can continue service as before, while an airline with 10x daily flights has to reduce capacity by 90%.

Regarding the first point, yeah, I don’t really get the justification for a policy like this? Is it about safety? If so, is it safe for each airline to fly one plane per day, but not more? Is it about limited resources, like fuel? If so, it seems a policy could be put in place that airlines simply can’t refuel in Dubai (planes from nearby countries could easily carry enough fuel to go roundtrip).

It does seem to me like this policy is largely motivated by protecting “local” carriers, rather than actually something with independently sound logic… but maybe I’m missing something.

Bottom line

Airports in the Middle East have quite the challenge ahead of them to restore capacity, especially since the current Iran conflict is anything but settled. While we’re seeing operations stabilize a little bit, it’s still going to take some time for things to go back to normal.

As part of this, through May 31, 2026, Dubai is restricting foreign airlines to operating one daily flight to the city. That seems like an extreme policy and an illogical way to limit capacity, given the huge variance with which foreign airlines serve Dubai. Indian airlines clearly think that Dubai is simply trying to protect local airlines, so is demanding that India put reciprocal policies in place. I’m curious to see how this all plays out.

What do you make of Dubai’s capacity limits — do you think it’s logical, or just intended to protect carriers like Emirates?