Dubai (United Arab Emirates), 1 March (LaPresse/AP) – Hundreds of thousands of travellers were stranded or diverted to other airports after Israel, Qatar, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait and Bahrain closed their airspace. There was no flight activity even over the United Arab Emirates, according to the flight tracking website FlightRadar24, after the local government announced a “temporary and partial closure” of its airspace. This led to the closure of the main hub airports in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha and the cancellation of over 1,800 flights by major Middle Eastern airlines. The three main airlines operating at these airports – Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad – typically carry around 90,000 passengers a day through these hubs and even more travellers heading to destinations in the Middle East.