00:01It's always lovely to see these reunions particularly so when they are people who are coming from
00:07a conflict and the relief and the happiness amongst the family and friends is absolutely
00:12palpable.
00:12There were people holding bouquets of flowers and they were rushing towards their loved
00:17ones.
00:18There were a lot of tears, there were a lot of big hugs and a lot of happiness as well.
00:23So it was really lovely to actually see so many people and the relief on people's faces
00:28as well, touching down finally on Australian soil.
00:31But we do know that there were about 293 people on board this Emirates Flight 406 this morning.
00:39That included quite a few crews so probably only about 270 or so passengers and that means
00:44that the flight was actually around half full.
00:48And we spoke to Helen McKenzie, one of the people who'd been caught up in all of this drama.
00:53She was a tourist that was supposed to be coming back on Sunday and of course then got caught
00:58in Dubai.
00:59This is what she had to say about how many people were on board that flight.
01:04Like I come home on the plane today, it's half full.
01:08Why couldn't they have got more people on it?
01:10You know, fill those seats.
01:16So that was Helen McKenzie and she did say that she thought that she might get more assistance
01:20from the Department of Foreign Affairs.
01:22However, we have heard from Madeleine King, the Resources Minister, speaking on News Breakfast
01:28earlier just about how much the government is attempting to repatriate some of those Australians
01:33from the Middle East.
01:34This is what she had to say.
01:36Officials are working as best they can and as hard as they can with the airlines to make
01:41sure that people are, you know, getting out.
01:47So that was Madeleine King speaking on News Breakfast earlier and we did hear from many
01:53of the other passengers as well just talking about how concerned they were being stuck in
01:58Dubai.
01:58Some of them were saying that they actually saw some of these missiles coming towards the
02:02hotel area and their fear about that and seeing and hearing some of those sorts of explosions,
02:09particularly others that were talking about how great the UAE Defence Dome was in terms
02:14of intercepting those missiles.
02:17While others said that they actually felt quite safe while they were over there and had just
02:21returned because they had children.
02:24One of the couples that we spoke to actually had their daughter's first birthday celebration,
02:29would you believe, up in the air on board the plane.
02:32Now that celebration was supposed to be in London until all of this conflict turned their
02:39travel plans inside out.
02:40But we do know that we're going to be seeing some more flights at least landing in Sydney
02:45today.
02:46The first flight from Doha will be arriving.
02:49Also a flight from Abu Dhabi as well.
02:51However, the flights here into Melbourne remain cancelled.
02:55So there are six flights that remain inbound cancelled.
02:58They are from both Dubai, Qatar Airways, from Doha and also from Abu Dhabi as well.
03:05We did speak to Melbourne Airport though and they said that they were able to get three
03:10of the Emirates planes that had been grounded on the tarmac here out last night with a full
03:15complement of crew.
03:16There have been about 200 crew members here staying in the hotel just trying to get back
03:22on board as well while these hostilities continue to rage on.
03:26So still very much a moving situation but obviously for the people who got here it was
03:31a very happy homecoming.
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