H1-B fears prompt flyers to get off plane just before takeoff

By Leen Al-Rashdan

Shortly before an Emirates flight was set to depart from San Francisco to Dubai on September19, passengers in the cabin began hearing about US President Donald Trump’s decision to slap a $100,000 application fee on the H-1B visa.

Bewilderment among the travelers quickly turned to chaos and commotion, according to video footage from inside the cabin shared on social media.

Passengers got up and paced the aisles, checking their phones, and asked flight attendants to let them off the Airbus A380 jumbo jet just as Flight EK226 was due to leave for its 15-hour flight to Dubai International Airport.

While passengers are not typically allowed to leave a plane once the cabin doors have closed, the Emirates pilot announced to the cabin that “due to the current circumstances, obviously they are unprecedented for us here at Emirates, we are aware that a number of passengers do not wish to travel with us and that is perfectly fine.”

“All we ask is that if you wish to offload yourself, you do so,” he said over the cabin loudspeakers, according to the video footage reviewed by Bloomberg News.

Emirates didn’t reply to a request for comment.

Trump’s abrupt move to raise the application fee for the H-1B has sparked chaos and alarm among the holders of the widely used visa, more than 70 per cent of which are held by Indians, many employed through Indian IT firms.

The Trump administration cast the changes as part of a broader plan to bolster legitimate applications while weeding out abuses. But the lack of clarity around the new rules prompted tech firms from Microsoft Corp. to Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc. — some of the biggest beneficiaries of the H-1B program — to initially warn employees against foreign travel.

Indians make up the largest part of the population of the United Arab Emirates, and Dubai’s flag carrier has 167 flights to nine destinations in India every week. The top destination for traveler’s from Dubai International airport, one of the world’s biggest transit hubs, is India.

How many people — if any — eventually left the aircraft isn’t known. But the confusion on board before takeoff led to a significant delay, with the the aircraft finally lifting off for Dubai with a delay of three hours and 40 minutes, according to data from flight-tracking site Flightradar24.