Doob-ai: Dubai floods disrupt crypto and blockchain events, business loss for Indian players

Dubai, the host city for many crypto and blockchain events this year, is hit by torrential rains and the resultant flooding has caused a wave of flight cancellations and delays, affecting many Indian participants.

Indians from the crypto and blockchain industry who were looking forward to attending some of these events in this desert city were either unable to reach due to flight snag or attend meetings because of the bad weather.

Scenes from one of the premier crypto event called Token2049 showed people walking in ankle-deep water at the venue. Another event called Blockchain Life had to rearrange its agenda due to the traffic disruption caused by the heavy rain.

Loss of business

It has been a loss of business opportunity, said Anuradha Chowdhary, founder of ZeroTo3 Collective, a law firm for global clients in emerging technologies and entertainment.

"After three cancelled flights, I had no option but to give up. I was looking forward to being at Token2049, an event which would have been good for my business especially as my firm deals with global clients. Token2049 is the biggest event in the Web 3 industry. I had 20 meetings setup and I was supposed to meet my current clients who had flown in from different parts of the world," she said.

Sitting in her home in Mumbai, Chowdhary narrated her ordeal. "The initial flight I had booked from Mumbai to Dubai was done over a month in advance. The first flight was on the 16th morning around 8am. That got cancelled, so I rebooked for 16th night at 11:30pm and this too got cancelled. Then I booked again for the 17th morning at 8am which got cancelled as well. The first flight was an IndiGo which got cancelled and they told me that there is no flight until next week and that they we will give me a refund."

However, she said that the refund would have been of little to no help as the air fares for last minute booking were thrice more than the price at which she had booked her initial flight.

"The last minute (air ticket) prices were 3x, so the compensation of ticket amount means nothing. My one way ticket price for the first flight booking that I had done a month in advance was about Rs 22,000. When I was checking flight tickets after cancellation of my original flight SpiceJet ticket price was around Rs 40,000, Emirates was upwards of 65,000 and Air India was also around Rs 65,000. I have lost hotel bookings. They (IndiGo) also kept me on the call for five hours. This is loss of time, business and it is mental trauma," she said.

Flight disruptions

Many others faced flight disruptions, including CoinDCX Ventures' MD Rohit Jain who is attending Global Blockchain Week as well as Token2049. His April 16 flight to Dubai was rescheduled for the next day.

CoinDCX's Chief Technology Offficer (CTO) Vivek Gupta's flight was also cancelled and he had to book an alternate flight.

Even though some of the crypto big-guns made it to the city, many of them couldn't make it to the venue because of the traffic snarl. Avinash Shekhar, former CEO of Zebpay and co-founder of Tax nodes and Pi42, was unable to go out for meetings despite being in the city because of flooding. "I had to cancel as well as postpone many meetings," he said.

Roads are flooded, metro inoperable and Ubers are stuck on the streets after up to 259.5 millimetres (10.2 inches) of rain, the most since records began 75 years ago, fell on the deserts of the United Arab Emirates on April 16.

Many of Shekhar's colleagues could not make it to the Token2049 event because of flight disruptions. "Four employees of Pi42 were traveling to the Token2049 event in Dubai. Three of them took an Emirates flight, numbered EK565, while the fourth employee boarded an Indigo flight. They endured a frustrating experience, having waited at the airport since six in the morning. By evening, around 6 o'clock, they were abruptly informed that their flight had been canceled and were instructed to leave the terminal without any details regarding alternative flights," he said.

Shekhar's colleagues did not receive any updates about when they might be able to depart. "Reports indicated that severe waterlogging at the Dubai airport was causing extensive delays. These delays were progressively extended by three hours over the course of the day. The situation was even worse for the employee on the Indigo flight, who faced additional complications. He was scheduled for a connecting flight from Bengaluru to Hyderabad, with a subsequent leg to Dubai. However, the disruption left him stranded at the Hyderabad airport," he said.