WFP links the middle eastern skies in response to COVID-19
Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates, 2019. BEFORE COVID-19
It’s just another day in one of the busiest airports in the world… approaching 6 a.m. the large bustling crowd huddles and moves fast through the corridors of the desert-sprawl airport of Dubai. So many languages fill the air and thousands of people arrive every minute from everywhere on the planet to catch their connecting flights, while outside an airplane’s silhouette descends and comes closer to the glass wall lining panels preparing to land.
Dubai International Airport, United Arab Emirates, 2020. POST COVID-19
It’s another lockdown day in the once-busiest airport in the world… approaching 6 a.m. the International Terminal 3 is empty and silent, and the once-full departure board shows only a couple of flights. Passengers are wearing masks due to the coronavirus pandemic and wait at ticketing in the hope of getting on board. Gate staff wearing protective gears check and warn if someone has a high temperature or isn’t wearing a mask.
In the last few years, the Gulf has been the crossroad of global travel with its hubs in Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi, which are an eight-hour flight away from two-thirds of the world’s population. The global lack of flights due to COVID-19 was probably nowhere else felt more intensively than in the Middle East. Consequently, the flights suspension in the region had severely impacted thousands of humanitarian workers who could not travel and deliver their assistance where they are urgently needed.
At the pandemic peak in June, a spark of hope arrives from the United Nations World Food Programme. Aviation teams based in the middle eastern region managed to secure the authorizations from the Gulf Civil Aviation Authorities to operate humanitarian passenger flights from and to Sharjah, a city located at 39 kilometres from Dubai, with the support of the Emirati local commercial airline, Air Arabia. In only two weeks since the launch of the operation, which is part of the WFP Global Humanitarian Response plan to COVID-19, over 40 flights have departed from Sharjah transporting more than 350 passengers to multiple destinations among the Middle East and the Commonwealth of Independent States and connecting the region with Africa through the route Sharjah-Addis Ababa-Sharjah. These flights are now a reality thanks to the local authorities and institutions that made it possible to open this lifesaving airlink and set-up the hub in Sharjah, where destinations are served every week and include Amman, Cairo, Baghdad, Erbil, Yerevan, Beirut, Bishkek and Dushanbe.
Among the many passengers, staff from the International Medical Corps have vividly shared their appreciation on the operation stating the importance of the service is not only “ensuring that those furthest behinds, who rely on humanitarian and medical assistance, can continue to be reached, but also getting workers home after being stranded for months far away from their families and loved ones.”
Story by Eleonora Ponti, WFP Aviation Service
