Navigating Crisis: How Travel Advisors Helped Americans Escape the Middle East Conflict

As the joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran unfolded earlier this month, Americans in the Middle East struggled to evacuate the region.

According to news reports published during the first week of March, multiple U.S. embassies in the Middle East said they would be unable to assist American citizens.

The U.S. Embassy in Jerusalem indicated in a post on X that it was "not in a position at this time to evacuate or directly assist Americans in departing Israel." Similarly, the U.S. Embassy in Qatar said in a post on X that it could not help evacuate Americans.

 

 

Meanwhile, the State Department urged Americans to leave countries throughout the Middle East. But at the same time, the region's airspace was closed amid U.S. strikes on Iran, which made getting out during those initial days of the war challenging, if not impossible.

U.S. residents caught up in the developing geopolitical events described "chaos" in interviews with news outlets.

Randy Manner, a retired U.S. major general and former deputy commanding general of the Third U.S. Army in Kuwait, told The New York Times: "It is the epitome of absurdity. 'Leave the country,' but yet the airspace is closed," he said, referring to Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar closing their airspaces after the U.S.-Israel joint operations began. "This is nothing less than a total failure of the U.S. government to provide the expected assistance to American civilians who are caught in harm's way."

While all of this was taking place, travel advisors did not miss a beat. In interviews with TravelPulse, advisors who had clients traveling in the impacted countries described how they jumped into action to coordinate safe and timely evacuations.

Using their industry knowledge and expertise, along with on-the-ground contacts throughout the region, and access to flight information the average consumer would not have, advisors made a critical difference in getting Americans to safety amid what was a very frightening situation. Here's a closer look at some of those efforts.

Evacuating travelers stuck in Dubai

"We in the travel industry have had a very harrowing week, to say the least," begins Leigh Rowan, founder of Savanti Travel, a San Francisco-based agency that handles ultra high net worth travelers, including many corporate clients who conduct business in Dubai.

As the U.S. began attacks on Iran, one of Savanti Travel's VIPs, who was attempting to leave Dubai, found herself caught amid the unfolding war.

Her scheduled flight home to San Francisco on February 28 departed from Dubai without incident, says Rowan. But not long after takeoff, events suddenly took a very unexpected turn.

"An hour-and-a-half outside Dubai, the flight got a call that missles were being fired and so the plane turned around and flew back through the missiles to go back to Dubai," Rowan told TravelPulse.

That's when the Savanti advisors jumped into action. The travel agency has a team of 30 travel advisors, many of whom used to work for Emirates airlines, which was a key asset in this situation, as the team was able to obtain vital information from their contacts within Emirates.

"They are still very close with Emirates' current flight attendants and are able to find out which flights were being staffed and which flights were getting out of Dubai," Rowan explained.

Leveraging intelligence gleaned from airline contacts, as well as Savant's own collective tenacity with technology (the company monitored every single flight departure from Dubai that was taking place from March 1 onward), the agency was able to get its client out on the first commercial nonstop flight from Dubai to San Francisco when the airport in Dubai reopened.

"She ended up getting out on Thursday March 4. It was a nail biter, but she made it out," said Rowan. "It was scary for her…I know her experience was not a comfortable one and that her family was worried about her from the moment she was rerouted back to Dubai and until she stepped foot back in San Francisco."

The story is merely one example of why travel advisor knowledge and experience matters so much in a crisis situation. "That's the real secret sauce of travel advisory - the relationships we have. The knowledge we have. AI is not going to know how to get ahead on the list of flights or find the hacks," said Rowan.

Rescuing clients stranded in Kuwait

A Pennsylvania couple visiting family in India were also among those whose travel plans were impacted by developments in Iran.

The couple had a layover in Kuwait en route home from their India trip, and as they were passing through the Middle East hub, the U.S. attack on Iran began. Suddenly, the couple found themselves stranded in Kuwait as airports throughout the region closed and shelter-in-place orders were issued.

At that point, they had no immediate way to get home. Making matters worse, a drone strike from Iran had just hit the local U.S. Embassy and the building was on fire, meaning there was no help to be had from local U.S. government representatives. 

That's when their longtime travel advisor from Envoyage, Lyndsay Roach, stepped in and played a key role in securing flights for the couple as the region descended into chaos. "They were extremely stressed," Roach, a Pennsylvania-based advisor, told TravelPulse.

Getting the couple back to the United States safely required them traveling from Kuwait to Saudi Arabia by land. "They crossed the border into Saudi Arabia in the middle of the night," continues Roach.

Once in Saudi Arabia, the next challenge was securing the couple a flight out of the country, which was no easy task as scores of other travelers were trying to do the same thing.

"The flights from Saudi Arabia were moving within a matter of minutes. I would pull a flight and it was gone in minutes," recalls Roach. "Even the flights we ended up securing, only had a couple seats left at the time we booked them." 

Despite that challenge, Roach was able to book a flight for the couple from Saudi Arabia to Frankfurt, Germany. And from Germany, the pair made the last leg of their journey home to the United States, safely.

"The main concern initially was getting them from Kuwait to somewhere safe," Roach explained. "We focused on that first. And after that, we would figure out how to get them the rest of the way home."


Envoyage travel advisors remained in contact with the couple throughout the process to provide support and coordination until they returned to their Pennsylvania home. And just this week, the couple wrote to Roach to express their gratitude for the role she played amid such a stressful chain of events.

The thank you note explained that the events the couple just experienced in the Middle East were scary and felt life threatening, between all the noises and smoke they witnessed. The couple ended the note saying they are thankful to be alive and back home.

Quick mobilization

As the situation in the Middle East escalated and airports began closing, the global network of travel advisors that work for ALTOUR, a business travel company, quickly mobilized to help their clients who were either stranded in the region or impacted by sudden flight disruptions.

ALTOUR set up a rapid-response team that encompassed more than 70 trusted travel partners located across the Middle East, Europe, APAC, and the U.S. The information from this group of on-the-ground experts enabled ALTOUR's advisors to provide clients with real-time updates, identify open flight routes, and help travelers reroute through alternative airports and connections as schedules changed.

John Rose, chief risk advisor for ALTOUR, said the conflict understandably made travelers nervous, particularly because Iran's attack on neighboring countries was much broader than anyone expected. "Nobody expected a hotel in the UAE to get hit," Rose told TravelPulse.

As the attacks related to the war escalated, ALTOUR's advisors moved significant numbers of people out of the region."Some people we moved into Oman, because they felt a lot of safer there," Rose explained. And later, as air travel reopened, travelers were able to fly out of the region with ALTOUR's help.

Similar to the other travel agencies and advisors interviewed, ALTOUR's network of experienced advisors and the company's connections with travel partners located throughout the region, were essential to the safe and timely evacuation of clients. In ALTOUR's case, the agency assisted with the movement and rebooking of more than 1,000 travelers. 

It's a level of support and expertise that travelers who book trips on their own through online ticket aggregator platforms are unlikely to receive.

"Our partners in the Middle East were moving thousands of their own customers during all of this, so we were getting real, on the ground information, which was vital," Rose said. "Having that network is so important."

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