The world is very big and full of monsters

How the USA and Iran war on Israel impacted two individuals.

A

t four-thirty in the morning, standing in front of an unmanned check-in desk, a young woman tapped me on the shoulder.  She had

At four-thirty in the morning, standing in front of an unmanned check-in desk, a young woman tapped me on the shoulder. She had heard from someone else that our flight to Istanbul had been cancelled. There was no announcement. No notification on my phone. No airline representative in sight — and when we finally found one, they confirmed the cancellation, turned their back and walked away. In the harsh artificial light of that morning at Delhi Airport my husband and I looked at each other and said nothing. There was nothing to say. We knew what we had to do.

On 28 February 2026, the USA and Israel attacked Iran. We were in the mountains of Kerala. Two older travellers — my husband is 68, I am 62 — with an Emirates flight booked to take us home on 7 March. Dubai was still operating, so we waited. Then on 4 March our flight was cancelled. With the airport closed, we had no way to reach our connection. Emirates offered no alternatives and no hotel accommodation. It was shockingly clear; we were on our own.

Armed with my mobile phone and a dodgy wi-fi connection, I began trying to find a way home. The difficulty was this: every travel app — Skyscanner, Opodo, Kayak — along with the airline websites themselves were still displaying flights that routed through closed airports. What they showed was not the reality. I booked what looked like the only viable option I could find: a flight from Delhi to Istanbul, connecting to London Gatwick, on 6 March, through the Opodo app. It cost €2,951.22. This was money we didn’t have to spare, but it was booked in good faith and, with some relief we tried to breathe.

Delhi was not what either of us needed. We arrived in intense, dusty, evening heat. Our confused taxi driver couldn't find our hotel — and when we did find it, we understood why. It was down a side street, surrounded by building works, in a part of the city that did not feel safe. We walked back to the chaotic main road with our luggage. My husband was approached with offers he fortunately couldn't hear — his hearing aids had been chewed by one of our kittens before we left home. We found another hotel, showered, had a drink, and set an alarm for three in the morning.

And so, we found ourselves at that empty check-in desk. The flight to Istanbul cancelled. We were once again without accommodation, without a route, and without anyone willing to help.

We are not frequent travellers. Both of us are on medication. The panic that gripped me was not a mild anxiety — it was the kind that courses rapidly through your body, fear is behind every thought, every movement. The type of panic that changes the air around you. After a couple of hours, with my phone battery dropping rapidly, we booked a hotel in Delhi's financial district. Somewhere secure. Somewhere with power sockets.

Getting there proved its own ordeal. A taxi driver who promised we could pay by card took us on a route with no working cash machines. When we reached the hotel, an argument ensued and the driver finally left with the little cash we had. Inside, we showered, had breakfast, and I started again to find a way home.

This was not a lovely extension of a holiday. It was brutal, frightening and isolating. The British Embassy had no useful advice. The UK Government's website was focused on UK nationals in Dubai — those of us stranded elsewhere were, as far as I could tell, invisible and irrelevant. After a day of searching, with prices escalating by the hour, the only realistic option was a routing via Bangalore to Mumbai, then Mumbai to London Heathrow with Virgin Atlantic on 12 March. The cost: £5,608.60. We were desperate and desperation comes at a price.

The Government's website was focused on UK nationals in Dubai. Those of us stranded elsewhere were, as far as I could tell, invisible and irrelevant.

That afternoon we went for a walk — knowing it would do us good — through a security checkpoint near the hotel and into the surrounding streets. We sat down for a coffee. I looked at my phone. The screen was completely black. Nothing I did would bring it back. Everything was on that phone: our bookings, my credit card, it was our lifeline. My husband broke down completely.

I held onto one thought: the hotel staff would help us. My mother used to say that as you get older, your ability to cope with stress changes — that the smallest thing can become a mountain. She was right. Two doors along, there was an Apple store. The staff there were the first people in days to show us any kindness. They fixed my phone in seconds, and my husband instantly sank to the floor with relief. This was anything but a holiday.

On 9 March we flew to Bangalore and waited in a hotel there, in another gated, security-controlled district, for our connecting flight to Mumbai. It was uneventful, it was a relief. We washed some clothes and tried not to think about cancelled flights.

At Bangalore Airport, a security guard pulled us aside at the gate. We had packed camera batteries in our hold luggage. They were removed and left behind. We barely flinched. We just wanted to be on the flight.

Mumbai was chaotic and searingly hot. We took the free shuttle to our departure terminal at around one in the morning and waited nine hours before we could clear security. Nine hours in a plastic chair, listening to chatter and confusion while the sky outside slowly lightened.

Then, finally, we were on a Virgin Atlantic seat, seatbelt fastened, engines building. I knew that if I started to cry, I wouldn't stop. So, I didn't. I sat very still and waited for the wheels to leave the ground.

We made it home, though 'home' required a train from Heathrow to Gatwick to collect the car we'd left there. By the time we walked through our front door, we had spent close to £8,000 — on cancelled flights, replacement bookings, hotel bills, ground transport, additional parking and cat-sitting days we'd had to arrange.

A day or two later, with a strong coffee, I started to think about the failures. Not ours — we'd done everything we could. The failures of the systems that were supposed to help.

My mobile network sent a cheerful message when we entered India, welcoming us to the country. It did not ask whether we were affected by the conflict in the Middle East, whether we had enough data for the volume of calls and searches ahead of us, or whether there was anything it could do. A single message — 'Are you affected by events in the region? Here's what you need to know' — would have cost nothing and meant everything.

The travel apps left flights routing through closed airports visible and bookable for days. This was not an oversight. Removing those flights would have meant acknowledging refunds were owed. So, they stayed up, and people — people like us — booked them in good faith and then stood at empty check-in desks at four-thirty in the morning wondering what to do next.

The insurance company told us to claim hotel and flight costs from the airlines as they referred us to the clause regarding ‘war and conflict’. The airlines have so far offered little hope of reimbursement. Nobody cares. Nobody appears to have considered that the cost of getting home in a crisis is not only the replacement flight — it is the hotels, the ground transport, the additional parking, the carer for your pets, the medical appointments you miss, and the toll it takes on two people who were not young and were very, very scared.

We have heard about people trying to get back to Warsaw, from Australia, from Sweden. All of us were forgotten.

What would have helped? A contact centre — a single, publicised number or webchat — for travellers stranded in any country, offering co-ordinated advice. Not just guidance aimed at people near the conflict zone, but for the ripple of disruption that spreads outward across every flight path, every connecting hub, every traveller who simply needs to get home.

War does not only affect those in its immediate reach. It destroys the travel plans — the carefully saved-for holidays, the homeward journeys, the ordinary lives — of people far beyond the headlines. In this world of AI and instant communication, the focus of crisis response remains resolutely on the corporate and the global. The individual falls through every gap.

The world is very small in one respect — a quick train ride and you’re in France, a phone call and you’re talking to a loved one in Australia, but when conflict cancels your flight and you’re stranded and alone it becomes very, very big, and full of monsters. The monsters are not always what you expect. Sometimes they are an app that won't remove a flight it knows will never fly. Sometimes they are a phone screen that goes black at the worst possible moment. Sometimes they are the silence from every official channel that is supposed to help.

We got home. Not everyone may have been as fortunate. from someone else that our flight to Istanbul had been cancelled. There was no announcement. No notification on my phone. No airline representative in sight — and when we finally found one, they confirmed the cancellation, turned their back and walked away.  In the harsh artificial light of that morning at Delhi Airport my husband and I looked at each other and said nothing. There was nothing to say.  We knew what we had to do.

On 28 February 2026, the USA and Israel attacked Iran. We were in the mountains of Kerala.   Two older travellers — my husband is 68, I am 62 — with an Emirates flight booked to take us home on 7 March. Dubai was still operating, so we waited. Then on 4 March our flight was cancelled. With the airport closed, we had no way to reach our connection. Emirates offered no alternatives and no hotel accommodation. It was shockingly clear; we were on our own.

Armed with my mobile phone and a dodgy wi-fi connection, I began trying to find a way home. The difficulty was this: every travel app — Skyscanner, Opodo, Kayak — along with the airline websites themselves were still displaying flights that routed through closed airports. What they showed was not the reality.  I booked what looked like the only viable option I could find: a flight from Delhi to Istanbul, connecting to London Gatwick, on 6 March, through the Opodo app. It cost €2,951.22. This was money we didn’t have to spare, but it was booked in good faith and, with some relief we tried to breathe.

Every travel app was still showing flights that routed through closed airports. They had not been updated to reflect reality.

Delhi was not what either of us needed. We arrived in intense, dusty, evening heat.  Our confused taxi driver couldn't find our hotel — and when we did find it, we understood why. It was down a side street, surrounded by building works, in a part of the city that did not feel safe. We walked back to the chaotic main road with our luggage. My husband was approached with offers he fortunately couldn't hear — his hearing aids had been chewed by one of our kittens before we left home. We found another hotel, showered, had a drink, and set an alarm for three in the morning.

And so, we found ourselves at that empty check-in desk. The flight to Istanbul cancelled. We were once again without accommodation, without a route, and without anyone willing to help.

· · ·

We are not frequent travellers. Both of us are on medication.  The panic that gripped me was not a mild anxiety — it was the kind that courses rapidly through your body, fear is behind every thought, every movement.  The type of panic that changes the air around you.  After a couple of hours, with my phone battery dropping rapidly, we booked a hotel in Delhi's financial district. Somewhere secure. Somewhere with power sockets.

Getting there proved its own ordeal. A taxi driver who promised we could pay by card took us on a route with no working cash machines.  When we reached the hotel, an argument ensued and the driver finally left with the little cash we had. Inside, we showered, had breakfast, and I started again to find a way home.

This was not a lovely extension of a holiday. It was brutal, frightening and isolating. The British Embassy had no useful advice. The UK Government's website was focused on UK nationals in Dubai — those of us stranded elsewhere were, as far as I could tell, invisible and irrelevant. After a day of searching, with prices escalating by the hour, the only realistic option was a routing via Bangalore to Mumbai, then Mumbai to London Heathrow with Virgin Atlantic on 12 March. The cost: £5,608.60. We were desperate and desperation comes at a price.

The Government's website was focused on UK nationals in Dubai. Those of us stranded elsewhere were, as far as I could tell, invisible and irrelevant.

That afternoon we went for a walk — knowing it would do us good — through a security checkpoint near the hotel and into the surrounding streets. We sat down for a coffee. I looked at my phone. The screen was completely black. Nothing I did would bring it back. Everything was on that phone: our bookings, my credit card, it was our lifeline. My husband broke down completely.

I held onto one thought: the hotel staff would help us. My mother used to say that as you get older, your ability to cope with stress changes — that the smallest thing can become a mountain. She was right. Two doors along, there was an Apple store. The staff there were the first people in days to show us any kindness. They fixed my phone in seconds, and my husband instantly sank to the floor with relief. This was anything but a holiday.

· · ·

On 9 March we flew to Bangalore and waited in a hotel there, in another gated, security-controlled district, for our connecting flight to Mumbai. It was uneventful, it was a relief. We washed some clothes and tried not to think about cancelled flights.

At Bangalore Airport, a security guard pulled us aside at the gate. We had packed camera batteries in our hold luggage. They were removed and left behind. We barely flinched. We just wanted to be on the flight.

Mumbai was chaotic and searingly hot. We took the free shuttle to our departure terminal at around one in the morning and waited nine hours before we could clear security. Nine hours in a plastic chair, listening to chatter and confusion while the sky outside slowly lightened.

Then, finally, we were on a Virgin Atlantic seat, seatbelt fastened, engines building. I knew that if I started to cry, I wouldn't stop. So, I didn't. I sat very still and waited for the wheels to leave the ground.

· · ·

We made it home, though 'home' required a train from Heathrow to Gatwick to collect the car we'd left there. By the time we walked through our front door, we had spent close to £8,000 — on cancelled flights, replacement bookings, hotel bills, ground transport, additional parking and cat-sitting days we'd had to arrange. 

A day or two later, with a strong coffee, I started to think about the failures. Not ours — we'd done everything we could. The failures of the systems that were supposed to help.

My mobile network sent a cheerful message when we entered India, welcoming us to the country. It did not ask whether we were affected by the conflict in the Middle East, whether we had enough data for the volume of calls and searches ahead of us, or whether there was anything it could do. A single message — 'Are you affected by events in the region? Here's what you need to know' — would have cost nothing and meant everything.

The travel apps left flights routing through closed airports visible and bookable for days. This was not an oversight. Removing those flights would have meant acknowledging refunds were owed. So, they stayed up, and people — people like us — booked them in good faith and then stood at empty check-in desks at four-thirty in the morning wondering what to do next.

The insurance company told us to claim hotel and flight costs from the airlines as they referred us to the clause regarding ‘war and conflict’.  The airlines have so far offered little hope of reimbursement. Nobody cares. Nobody appears to have considered that the cost of getting home in a crisis is not only the replacement flight — it is the hotels, the ground transport, the additional parking, the carer for your pets, the medical appointments you miss, and the toll it takes on two people who were not young and were very, very scared.

We have heard about people trying to get back to Warsaw, from Australia, from Sweden. All of us were forgotten.

What would have helped? A contact centre — a single, publicised number or webchat — for travellers stranded in any country, offering co-ordinated advice. Not just guidance aimed at people near the conflict zone, but for the ripple of disruption that spreads outward across every flight path, every connecting hub, every traveller who simply needs to get home.

War does not only affect those in its immediate reach. It destroys the travel plans — the carefully saved-for holidays, the homeward journeys, the ordinary lives — of people far beyond the headlines. In this world of AI and instant communication, the focus of crisis response remains resolutely on the corporate and the global. The individual falls through every gap.

The world is very small in one respect — a quick train ride and you’re in France, a phone call and you’re talking to a loved one in Australia, but when conflict cancels your flight and you’re stranded and alone it becomes very, very big, and full of monsters. The monsters are not always what you expect. Sometimes they are an app that won't remove a flight it knows will never fly. Sometimes they are a phone screen that goes black at the worst possible moment. Sometimes they are the silence from every official channel that is supposed to help.

We got home. Not everyone may have been as fortunate.