Melini Moses

Director - Express Yourself Communications and Training l Award winning storyteller l Dag Hammarskjold and WPI fellow

[Shanaka Anslem Perera ⚡ @shanaka86]

Dubai just shut down. The busiest international airport on earth. Closed. Indefinitely.

Dubai International and Al Maktoum International both suspended all operations on February 28 per official Dubai Airports statement. Over 280 flights canceled. 250 more delayed. The airspace that handles more international passengers than any hub on the planet went dark this morning because Iranian ballistic missiles were flying through it.

Now read the airline list and understand the scale of what just broke.

Emirates. Grounded. Etihad. Grounded. Qatar Airways. Suspended all flights to and from Doha after Qatari airspace closed. Air India. Every single flight to every destination in the entire Middle East. Suspended indefinitely. Turkish Airlines. Suspended flights to Bahrain, Iraq, Iran, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Syria, Qatar, and the UAE until at least March 2. Lufthansa. Dubai suspended. Air France. Tel Aviv and Beirut suspended. Wizz Air. Israel, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, and Amman suspended until March 7. British Airways. Affected. Virgin Atlantic. Affected. Japan Airlines. Affected. Norwegian Air, LOT Polish, Scandinavian Airlines, Aegean, Iberia, Air Arabia, PIA, Saudia, Air Algerie. All affected. All grounded or rerouting.

This is not a regional disruption. This is the global aviation network breaking at one of its most critical nodes.

Dubai is not just an airport. It is the single largest connecting hub between Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Every flight from Mumbai to London, from Singapore to Frankfurt, from Nairobi to New York that routes through the Gulf is now either canceled, delayed, or burning extra fuel on thousand-mile detours around closed airspace. IndiGo just suspended flights to Almaty, Baku, Tashkent, and Tbilisi until March 28. Not March 2. March 28. A month of Central Asian connectivity erased because Iranian missiles crossed the flight paths.

The cost is compounding by the hour. Rerouted flights burn more fuel when oil is spiking past 100 dollars a barrel because the same conflict that closed the airspace is threatening the strait that moves 21 million barrels a day. Airlines are paying surge prices for fuel to fly longer routes around a war zone that did not exist yesterday morning. Every hour the airspace stays closed, the losses multiply across carriers already operating on thin margins.

And here is what nobody is calculating yet. Dubai’s economy runs on connectivity. Tourism. Trade. Finance. Logistics. All of it depends on DXB being open. The UAE just absorbed an act of war on its sovereign territory with a civilian killed in Abu Dhabi from missile debris. The country that built its entire economic model on being the safe, neutral, connected hub of the Middle East is now closed for business because the country it had no quarrel with fired missiles through its airspace.

Iran did not just attack military bases this morning. Iran shut down the economic engine of the Gulf.

That is a cost Tehran cannot afford to repay and the UAE will not forget.

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

@OUTPointsmenJhb @OUTsurance Please can your pointsmen stop using the Wilson Street/Beyers Naude corner for training during morning peak time traffic. It has been creating a backlog on the route for about a week now. Oxford & Jellicoe in Rosebank does need help though! :)

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

@JHBWater Major water loss outside 5 Fleming Street, Wendywood. Please assist!

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Thank you @PabiMoloi for the opportunity to talk about the importance of boundaries in our homes, our workplace and in our speech. It's always a pleasure chatting with you on @Powerfm987!

[POWER 98.7 @Powerfm987]

[ON AIR] The power of boundaries: Learning to say no without guilt.

@PabiMoloi is in conversation with Director of Express Yourself and founder of The Zoe Legacy Foundation, Melini Moses.

#POWERLunch

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Mini-substations are being vandalised, mostly during loadshedding. Cables are stolen daily. Copper and aluminium are being harvested. Criminals even go through tunnels with faeces to grab cables. COJ workers are met with guns. It is a war underground. @CityPowerJhb #CEOUnplugged

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

If we put all our efforts into renewing infrastructure, billing all our customers, and declaring war on energy theft, we should be financially sustainable - Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO

#CEOUnplugged #coj #electricitysupply

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

The inner city has been our focus over February and March. We have discovered that there are customers we have not been billing. From 1 April 2025 @CityPowerJhb will be responsible for billing, instead of COJ.
- Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO

#CEOUnplugged

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO: Some of our transformers are 90 years old. We should have been aggressively renewing our infrastructure between 1995-2015 instead of expanding. We incurred 1.5 billion rand in technical losses over time. We need to renew our infrastructure.

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO: We are bringing in electric vehicles. Our entire fleet is going electric. We are busy working on charging stations across the city.

#CEOUnplugged #coj #electricitysupply

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO: we fix the street lights on a daily basis. However the very next day they are damaged. We have started moving towards a change in technology. There are over 200 000 street lights in the COJ so we have started with hotspots.

#CEOUnplugged

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO: We have made strides with the self-generation of electricity. We are making progress in procuring from IPP's for 20 year terms. The COJ buildings are being fitted with energy efficient technology.

#CEOUnplugged #coj #electricitysupply

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO: Our focus is to get our customer service better than @NERSA_ZA prescribes. This will entail excellent communication.

#CEOUnplugged #coj #electricitysupply

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Tshifularo Mashava @CityPowerJhb CEO: One challenge has been explaining the difference in cost between pre-paid and post-paid customers. Pre-paid customers have effectively been subsidised for service charges for years. 2030 will bring some equalibrium.
#CEOUnplugged #coj

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Looking forward to some key insights from @CityPowerJhb's CEO Unplugged session this morning. #electricitysupply #coj

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

Tshifularo Mashava, City Power CEO:
In December 2021 we plotted a journey map. Short term goal - the customer would be at the centre of everything we do. Since then, various new channels of communication have been created.
@CityPowerJhb #CEOUnplugged #electricitysupply #coj

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

@CityPowerJhb Hi you switched block 16 off at exactly 6pm instead of 8pm.

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

@Powerfm987 @PabiMoloi Always great chatting to @PabiMoloi Thanks for the opportunity!

[POWER 98.7 @Powerfm987]

[ On air ]

@PabiMoloi is in conversation with Director At Express Yourself Melini Moses on Public Speaking: Overcoming stage fright

#PowerLunch

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

@JHBWater @CityofJoburgZA Hi, no one has arrived since last night - REF 8006534425. It is urgent as the water has been gushing out of the municipal pipe leading into our property since yesterday afternoon. It has been impossible to stop it. A tragic waste of a precious resource

[Melini Moses @melinimoses]

@CityPowerJhb
Power supply has gone off in Fairland overnight. Please assist.
CPWEB4394465