Over the last eight months going back to March 2026, flight options into cities across the Middle East have been sporadic and severely limited.
Most international carriers have canceled all flights into cities such as Dubai, Doha and Tel Aviv immediately after the U.S.-Israeli strike on Iran on Feb. 28 and the security situation that the attack set off across the entire region has made restarting service and planning for the future challenging.
Most recently in October, a string of Houthi attacks on the airport and other targets in Saudi Arabia have pushed most major airlines to suspend service into the country.
Lufthansa pushes back restart of its Dubai flight until November 2026
German flag carrier Lufthansa became the latest carrier to confirm a pushback of its flights to Dubai International (DXB) until the end of November. The national airline has not run its flights from Munich (MUN) and Frankfurt (FRA) since March 2026 but was scheduled to restart them on Oct. 25 and 26, respectively.
“In light of the current situation and outlook in the Middle East, the Lufthansa Group decided today to postpone its planned resumption of flights to Dubai (United Arab Emirates) until 25 November 2026,” the airline said in a statement. “[…] Affected passengers will be contacted directly by their respective airlines and will be offered flexible rebooking options or a full refund.”
Related: Airport shut down, international airlines cancel flights after Houthi attack
The pushback also affects flights to Dubai on Lufthansa subsidiaries Swiss and Eurowings, which were also scheduled to resume service by the start of November. The same tentative restart date has also been set for the two other carriers.
As with other major European airlines like KLM and Air France, Lufthansa has been forced to push back the restart of its service to Dubai dozens of times since the start of the year as the security situation in the Middle East went through certain ebbs but ultimately remains too unstable for international airlines.
As of Oct. 2026, the main way to get into and out of the country are through state-owned carriers Emirates and Etihad Airways.
Ciel Tower Dubai
Lufthansa confirms refund options for canceled flights, warns of scammers impersonating airline
Passengers with an active booking either had a flight purchased before February 2026 and kept pushing back their flight instead of accepting a refund or bought a ticket after Lufthansa announced the restart dates.
In both cases, Lufthansa confirmed that representatives will contact the passenger to propose rebooking options and refund the flight to the original method of payment should they choose not to accept them.
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“Currently, fraudulent fake pages with purported Lufthansa contacts can be found on the Internet using the standard search engines,” the airline also said of impersonators who try to take advantage of such situations when large numbers of passengers are searching online for refund options. “These aim to access the (personal) details of our customers. Please only use channels listed on lufthansa.com for making contact, and enter your details only on lufthansa.com.”
Related: United Airlines pilot banned from flying specific route after social media posts
