Penny Wong has warned Australians living in the Middle East to return home now.
‘Our advice is that you should, if you can secure a seat, you should leave,’ she said.
‘Please don’t wait until it is too late.
‘We don’t want to see a situation where commercial flights – which are operating but obviously on a limited schedule – where they dry up.’
Wong said 2697 Australians had arrived from the UAE on 18 direct flights since the US-Israeli strikes were first launched on Iran on February 28.
More than 27,000 flights to and from the Middle East to international destinations have been cancelled, she added, with an estimated 4.4 million airline seats removed from schedules in the last week.
‘We have been working around the clock to support Australians who have been impacted by these cancellations,’ Senator Wong said.
‘We saw the first flight from Qatar direct to Australia land safely and we hope to see further flights in coming days.’
Penny Wong (pictured) said that Australia had received a request from the US for military aid
There are four flights scheduled to leave from Dubai to Sydney, Melbourne and Perth on Tuesday afternoon, subject to airspace remaining open.
Two buses have been organised to help travellers stranded in Kuwait, where the airport has closed, and a similar plan is in place for Australians in Bahrain, Senator Wong said.
The prime minister also announced plans to send a high-tech spy plane and mid-range missiles to the Middle East to help protect around 115,000 Australians still in the region.
‘Helping Australians meant also helping the UAE and other Gulf nations to defend themselves against what are unprovoked attacks,’ Mr Albanese said.
Registration for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Crisis Portal is open for Bahrain, Iran, Israel, Kuwait, Lebanon, Qatar and the UAE.
Wong urged Australians to not travel to these locations, as well as Palestine and Yemen.
Travel to Jordan, Oman and Saudi Arabia should be reconsidered, she said.
As the conflict escalates, Wong was pressed about Defence Minister Richard Marles’ revelation that the United States had formally asked Australia for military assistance.
More than 2600 Australians have returned from the Middle East after the conflict began
‘On Sunday, I said we have received multiple requests, and we’ve been working through them. We will work through them based on the objectives I outlined earlier in the week,’ Wong said.
Wong said the government was not providing any offensive support.
‘We are providing defensive capability, but obviously we will not detail operational matters in the middle of a conflict.’
Wong said the only request the government had formally responded to was from the United Arab Emirates, which resulted in Australia deploying an E‑7A Wedgetail to the Gulf on Tuesday.
