Portugal Colonial - More flights take off despite continued fighting in Middle East

The United States and Israel launched a campaign of air strikes against Iran on Saturday, killing its supreme leader and sparking retaliatory attacks by Tehran across the Gulf, with airports also targeted.

Airports in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar are major hubs for travel between Europe and Asia, so the closure of the region's airspace quickly left tens of thousands of travellers stranded.

Cirium, a company specialising in aviation sector data, said 87 flights took off Thursday from Dubai's international airport, the world's second-largest airport by passengers, and 15 from Abu Dhabi.

Another 60 flights left Oman's capital Muscat.

However, no flights left the airports in Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.

Cirium said that the 43.1 percent of flights across the region were cancelled on Thursday.

That is down from 61 percent on Wednesday, and more than 65 percent between Sunday and Tuesday.

Among the aircraft leaving Dubai were the super jumbo A380s flown by flag carrier Emirates.

Other Emirates A380s returned from abroad, including from destinations such as Los Angeles.

"With the limited re-opening of airspace, Emirates is operating a reduced flight schedule until further notice," the airline said on its website.

It added that customers with earlier bookings were being given priority to reserve new flights.

According to the flight tracking website FlightRadar24, flights departing from the United Arab Emirates were heading south to keep its distance from the Gulf and Iran.

Qatar Airways, whose regular operations are suspended until further notice, said Thursday it would carry out a limited number of repatriation flights for travellers stranded in the region.

It said it would operate flights from Muscat to London, Berlin and Rome, as well as from Riyadh to Frankfurt.

E.Borba--PC