Middle East Travel Update

Last updated: 27 March 2026, 2:00pm

The situation in the Middle East is being treated with the highest level of urgency. We are actively managing widespread flight disruptions and itinerary changes to ensure our travellers have the most recent information.

We act as a booking agent to manage our customers travel options. Our dedicated Crisis and Flight Operations teams are actively monitoring the situation and liaising with the impacted airlines to advocate for our customers. We are committed to navigating the latest airline policies and emergency waiver authorities to facilitate rebookings, with a primary focus on providing customers with all available options, minimising travel delays, and protecting our customers from additional costs where possible.

Customer Contact and Priority

Impacted Customers:

Customers with bookings that contain a flight path transiting through the Middle East.

Next Steps:

If you have received an email outlining options for your specific departure, please reply directly to that email. If you are travelling within 48 hours and have questions regarding the options provided to you via email, please call us on 135 777.

External Travel Advice

Important: Current Government Travel Advice & Customer Options

The Australian Government’s official advice for the United Arab Emirates and Qatar remains at ‘Do Not Travel’, including transiting and layovers.

However, it is the decision of the customer whether they wish to proceed with transiting through this region. If customers choose to continue with their original itinerary, we are urging them to check their travel insurance for Middle East transit coverage and to contact their provider directly with any questions regarding specific policies.

If customers are not comfortable transiting through the Middle East, our aim is to provide them with all available alternative options to review. We ask our customers to consider these options carefully and notify us of their preferred path forward as soon as possible.

Customers travelling up until the current priority date

The primary Account Holder will be contacted directly via the phone number and/or email address provided on the booking to discuss available options.

• If flights are disrupted: If an airline disruption policy applies, we will provide rebooking options in the form of a new schedule on the original airline or an alternative carrier and route, where applicable. If accepted, we will send the new itinerary immediately. (Note: rebookings are subject to limited seat availability). If an airline does not have a disruption policy that allows rerouting, quotes will be provided for new tickets, with any cancelled flights being refunded in full.
• If flights are NOT disrupted: Unless we hear from customers, we will continue to monitor the situation and assume they are travelling as scheduled.

Proactive Options

If customers prefer not to wait for a potential airline disruption, or they wish to avoid transiting through the region entirely, TripADeal can assist them with the following alternative options:

• Reroute Now: We can submit customers original ticket for a refund (where dictated by the airline's policy) and provide a quote to rebook them on an alternative carrier that avoids this region. All TripADeal service and change fees will be waived; however, please note that any additional ticket costs for the new routing are payable by the customer.
• Cancel Now: If customers choose to decline alternative travel options and cancel their booking entirely, this is classified as a voluntary cancellation. Some airlines are offering full flights refunds on cancellations under their current policies, please contact us to confirm if your flight falls into one of these airline policies. Since the land and touring services are subject to the individual cancellation policies of our third-party suppliers, we cannot guarantee that this portion of the booking will be refundable. However, we will advocate for our customers with local suppliers to recover as much as possible. We are waiving all TripADeal cancellation fees for impacted customers.

Important Information for all Travellers