The operational command and control that is practiced in this part of the world gives almost no discretion to staff to bend the rules or do anything outside of their normal remit, so if you're not getting the answer you wanted about your journey, it's best not to push it.

Also availability of seats will be in fast flux with rapid changes - flights that appear to be full could have availability later as other passengers cancel or rebook onto other services, so don't give up hope. Interestingly Qatar are giving impacted passengers two opportunities to rebook which is an acknowledgement that the situation can and will be fluid.

The practice of giving the operation time to breath and get it's ducks lined up before trying to restart in anger can yield results. Thinking back to the LHR shutdown earlier this year, albeit different circumstances, the airport called out very early that it would be a 24 hour shutdown despite having a decent clue at that stage that they wouldn't need all of that time to restore electrical power and services. But in reality it probably helped airlines and passengers plan better and give the whole operation a chance to restart service as fully as possible the next day, and broadly the restart probably went as well as anyone could have expected.