Over the spring break, several students experienced delays in international travel due to the ongoing war in Iran. Air travel hubs, including Dubai International (DXB), Abu Dhabi (AUH), Doha (DOH), Tel Aviv (TLV), and Beirut (BEY) airports, have experienced frequent flight cancellations and disruptions as airlines reroute to avoid the conflict in the Middle East.
International Student Coordinator Gina Finocchiaro communicated with students who required support with their travels, including coordinating last-minute adjustments to their plans.
“I reached out to students, to all international students, the weekend before spring break to find out who needed support and who needed help rerouting travel or making other arrangements because their plans were being impacted. So in some cases, students had to reroute flights or their travel was delayed. In other cases, students had to make totally different plans. And some of them were able to do that on their own, and some I had to make some last-minute host family pairings,” said Finocchiaro.
Michelle Onyeka ’27, an international student, usually flies through Dubai to return home via Emirates, but encountered a flight cancellation impending her departure on March 6th. Onyeka described the stress of balancing the situation with academic tasks.
“I got an email on Wednesday, two days before my flight saying that my flight was canceled, and I would either have to reschedule, or I would get refunded. I ended up having to stand hold with Emirates for hours, trying to reschedule my flights to either a later date, or with a different airline that doesn’t go through the Middle East,” said Onyeka.
She continued, “It was stressful because it was during finals week, but we ended up getting my flight rescheduled to leave on Sunday, the 8th. But I ended up having to travel to Toronto instead of leaving from Boston because the next flight out of Boston to Dubai was all the way on the 15th. I didn’t have as much time as I wanted to at home. It’s not much, but I got two less days, and I was recovering from jet lag for longer than I anticipated.”
Dina Namjoo ’28, who originally planned to visit her friends and family in Dubai, described the disruption to her travel itinerary.
“My plans were completely canceled. The flight was canceled, and I had to request a refund for the airline ticket, of course. It was a big deal because I had hotels booked and the flight was booked and I had plans to see my friends and family, which I was not able to,” said Namjoo.
The Learning in the World (LITW) programs also experienced travel disruptions over spring break. Mark Cutler, Director of LITW, worked to reroute flights for the programs “Nepal: Traditions of the Himalayas and Dark Nights” and “Celestial Lights: Auroras & Photography in Arctic Sweden.”
“[We had] to look at where people were traveling through. Would travel for one of these programs take anybody through the Middle East or the Gulf region? We identified that we had thirteen travelers who were supposed to fly through the Gulf region, twelve on one program to Nepal going through Dubai, and then one other student who was traveling from Hong Kong to Sweden via Doha, Qatar. And so we quickly acted on behalf of the twelve travelers on the program, and the individual, working with them to redirect them,” said Cutler.
Cutler continued, “We redirected the Nepal group. Thankfully, we found tickets that were reasonable, that weren’t exorbitantly expensive, and it delayed them by about 48 hours, but it wasn’t so much that we had to scrap the whole program. We determined that going to Nepal and Sweden was a reasonable proposition, and we found better routes to get there.”
