DUBAI — Citizens of seven mainly Muslim countries banned from the United States by President Donald Trump can resume boarding US-bound flights, several major airlines said on Saturday, after a Seattle judge blocked the executive order.
Qatar Airways was the first to say it would allow passengers from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to fly to US cities if they had valid documents.
Air France, Spain’s Iberia and Germany’s Lufthansa all followed suit after the federal judge’s ruling, which the White House said it planned to appeal as soon as possible. But the websites of two other major Gulf airlines, Etihad and Emirates, still carried notices informing passengers of Trump’s original Jan. 27 order.
US Customs and Border Protection told airlines they could board travelers affected within hours of Friday’s ruling, but budget airline Norwegian, which operates transatlantic flights including from London and Oslo, said many uncertainties remained about the legal position.
“It’s still very unclear,” spokeswoman Charlotte Holmbergh Jacobsson said. “We advise passengers to contact the US embassy ... We have to follow the US rules.”
In Cairo, aviation sources said Egypt Air and other airlines had told their sales offices of Friday’s ruling and would allow people previously affected by the ban to book flights.
But for some who had changed their travel plans following the ban, the order was not enough reassurance.
In Dubai, Tariq Laham, 32, and his Polish fiancee Natalia had scrapped plans to travel to the United States after they get married in July in Poland. Laham said the couple would not reverse their decision.
“It is just too risky,” said Laham, a Syrian who works as a director of commercial operations at a multinational technology company. “Every day you wake up and there is a new decision.”
The State Department said on Friday that almost 60,000 visas were suspended following Trump’s order. It was not clear whether that suspension was automatically revoked or what reception travelers with such visas might get at US airports.
The Washington state lawsuit was the first to test the broad constitutionality of Trump’s executive order. Judge James Robart, a George W. Bush appointee, explicitly made his ruling apply across the country, while other judges in similar cases have so far issued orders concerning only specific individuals.
The challenge in Seattle was brought by the state of Washington and later joined by the state of Minnesota. The judge ruled that the states have legal standing to sue, which could help Democratic attorneys general take on Trump in court on issues beyond immigration.
Washington’s case was based on claims that the state had suffered harm from the travel ban, for example students and faculty at state-funded universities being stranded overseas. Amazon.com and Expedia, both based in Washington state, had supported the lawsuit, asserting that the travel restrictions harmed their businesses. — Reuters
