100 air passengers left stuck in Hong Kong after Iran attack on US base near Doha

About 100 passengers were affected after a Qatar Airways flight from Hong Kong to Doha was cancelled on Tuesday morning after the country temporarily closed its airspace in anticipation of retaliatory attacks by Iran on a United States airbase near the capital.

Qatar Airways flight 815 was scheduled to depart from Hong Kong for Doha at 1.25am on Tuesday, just as Qatar closed its airspace to commercial airliners “to ensure the safety of citizens, residents”.

Shortly after the cancellation, news came through that Iran had launched a missile attack on the American Al Udeid Air Base near Doha. No casualties were recorded.

The attack on the biggest American airbase in the Middle East came two days after the US launched massive strikes against three nuclear facilities inside Iran.

Jasper Reed*, a passenger on the affected flight, said that he saw the news about 30 minutes before the flight started boarding.

“We all started lining up for boarding as the news was coming in about the attack on a US base in Qatar,” he said.

“It was quite surreal to think we might be boarding a flight heading to an active war zone, as nobody was telling us if the flight was cancelled or delayed.”