Explosions in the sky woke Cory McKane on Saturday, turning a quick visit to Dubai before a friend’s wedding in India into a tense, multi-day search for a way out of the United Arab Emirates as the Iran war expanded.

With few options, McKane and his friends eventually drove a rental car to the Oman border, where taxi drivers were charging up to $650 to take people to Muscat International Airport. The journey to Muscat took 10 hours but paid off: McKane secured a last-minute flight to India, arriving Wednesday exhausted but relieved.

Hundreds of thousands of travelers found themselves similarly stranded in the Middle East after Israel and the United States attacked Iran on Saturday and Iran struck back on Gulf states and Israel. With much of the region's airspace closed and airstrikes intensifying, governments from North America and Africa to Europe and Southeast Asia continued their race Wednesday to bring their citizens home.

Officials chartered jets or deployed military aircraft, routing stranded travelers through Oman, Egypt and Saudi Arabia — key exit points where planes could land and take off.

A plane carrying French citizens from Oman and then Egypt landed in Paris early Wednesday, the first of several expected repatriation flights organized by France. A group of students returned to Italy after their government evacuated them from Dubai. More than 200 people from 16 countries departed Iran by land through neighboring Turkmenistan despite the former Soviet country's strict visa policies.

Even as repatriation efforts gained momentum, many travelers faced the choice of waiting or trying to secure seats on the diminished number of commercial flights operating.

More than 23,000 of the roughly 44,000 flights scheduled to fly to or from the Middle East between the start of the war and Thursday have been canceled, according to aviation analytics firm Cirium. Flight-tracking service FlightAware reported more than 2,400 flight cancellations worldwide on Wednesday, down from about 3,150 on Monday.

Recovery flights underway

France estimates about 400,000 of its citizens are in parts of the Mideast affected by the conflict, either as residents or travelers.

Eleonore Caroit, the minister responsible for French nationals abroad, said about 100 seats on the country's first evacuation flight were reserved for vulnerable passengers, including families with children, older people and those with medical conditions. Two more flights were expected Wednesday — a military aircraft carrying 180 French citizens from the UAE city of Abu Dhabi and a charter bringing 205 people from Israel.

The U.S. State Department says 18,000 Americans have returned safely, including 8,500 on Tuesday. President Donald Trump's top spokeswoman, meanwhile, pushed back Wednesday against criticism that the administration had not done enough to help Americans leave.

Karolyn Leavitt, the press secretary, insisted that “there have been plans in place.”

“We will help every single American who wants to come home if they’re making that request of the State Department,” she said, adding that a department hotline message advising callers not to rely on U.S. government assistance had been corrected.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said nearly 280 citizens had been evacuated.

Around 15,000 people have left Israel through land crossings into Jordan and Egypt. Israel’s Ministry of Tourism is running buses to the southern border with Egypt transport tourists.

Britain said a charter flight would depart Oman late Wednesday to bring back some of the thousands of U.K. nationals in the Gulf. The U.K. Foreign Office said more than 130,000 British nationals in the Middle East had registered their presence with the government since Saturday, though officials said not all are trying to leave.

Ireland’s foreign minister said Emirates airline would operate a flight from Dubai to Dublin on Wednesday. A charter flight is also planned to evacuate 280 people from Oman in the coming days. Officials said an estimated 22,000 to 23,000 Irish citizens were in the Middle East.

Norway said it was sending an “emergency team” to Dubai to reinforce a embassy staff assisting about 1,500 Norwegians registered in the city.

On Indonesia's resort island of Bali, about 6,000 people were stranded after their flights to Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha, Qatar, were canceled. Many were tourists from Europe or the U.S. trying to connect through those Middle Eastern airports.

South Africa’s Foreign Ministry urged citizens to take advantage of the limited commercial flights after putting its own evacuation plans on hold due to the airspace closures.

Scrambling for plane tickets

Airspace closures and restrictions remained in place Wednesday across most of the Middle East, according to flight-tracking service Flightradar24. Notices from Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Syria said the countries' no-fly zones would last until at least early next week.

The United Arab Emirates’ airspace is partially closed, and Saudi Arabia continues to partially restrict routes near its border with Iraq and along the Persian Gulf. Israel prepared for a phased reopening that would allow incoming carrying returning citizens starting early Thursday. Jordan lifted its previous nighttime flight ban, restoring 24-hour operations.

Some of the aviation notices governing the closures allow authorities to reopen or restrict portions of airspace on short notice depending on security conditions, meaning flight schedules can quickly change as the conflict continues to unfold.

Commercial airlines have resumed limited service, but seats filled quickly. British Airways said its flights scheduled to depart Muscat through Saturday were fully booked and that it would add service “if we are able to.” Etihad Airways and Emirates, based in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, said their commercial flights were still suspended due to regional airspace closures, although both airlines operated a small number of repatriation and cargo flights.

Fabio Falasca, a 28-year-old entrepreneur from Rome, was stranded in Dubai with a friend when the conflict erupted over the weekend. He spent Saturday night sleeping in an underground parking lot.

While in constant contact with the Italian Foreign Ministry’s traveler platform, Falasca learned he could take a bus to Oman and then fly home to Italy. Although he had already bought a direct ticket from Dubai to Rome, another sleepless night between Monday and Tuesday convinced him to accept the ministry’s offer.

He left Dubai by bus on Tuesday, heading to Oman where he could catch a flight back to Italy.

“I can’t wait to get home and not be afraid of what’s outside,” Falasca said. “My only thought is to get home.”

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Yamat reported from Las Vegas and Rico from Atlanta. Contributing to this report were Associated Press journalists Samuel Petrequin in Paris; Melanie Lidman in Tel Aviv, Israel; Sylvia Hui, Brian Melley and Bridget Virgo in London; Jamey Keaten in Geneva; Gerald Imray in Johannesburg, South Africa; and Alexander Vershinin in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.