Foreign Minister Penny Wong confirmed the flight might leave Dubai this morning, but warned the situation remained "perilous" and it could be cancelled.
"This is a consular crisis that dwarfs ... any that Australia has had to deal with in terms of numbers of people," she told ABC radio on Wednesday.
There are about 24,000 Australians stranded in the United Arab Emirates, Senator Wong said.
People are advised to stay in contact with their airlines as things are rapidly changing.
While some limited flights are resuming out of the UAE, services are largely grounded, leaving tens of thousands of Australians trapped for weeks.
Asked if people could fly out of the Middle East via Saudi Arabia or Oman, the foreign minister said while all options were being considered, the conflict had spread to the broader region.
Senator Wong maintained commercial flights remained the best way to get large numbers of people out of the region.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese last night spoke with the president of the UAE, Mohammed bin Zayad el Nahyan.
Mr Albanese thanked him for the hospitality shown to Australians stuck there and discussed restarting commercial flights.
The prime minister also spoke with his New Zealand counterpart Christopher Luxon about the consular issues arising from the war.
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Counter Terrorism Ben Saul said it was "crystal clear" the US-Israeli strikes were an illegal, armed aggression against Iran.
"Every death in Iran is a violation of the human right to life as well under international human rights law," he told AAP.
"These aren't acts in self-defence because Iran has not attacked either country and is not about to imminently attack them and the security council hasn't given any authorisation."
Professor Saul accused the federal government of "trashing" rules of world order while dodging questions around the legality of the attacks.
Australia was one of the first countries to back the strikes by US and Israeli forces on Iran at the weekend.
Tehran has retaliated with a barrage of drones and missiles aimed at neighbouring states targeting oil and natural gas infrastructure.
About 115,000 Australians are believed to be stranded in the Middle East as the conflict continues to disrupt air travel.
Australia's embassy in Saudi Arabia has warned citizens in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dhahran to shelter in place, while an Australian defence base in the United Arab Emirates was hit in an Iranian attack.
Opposition industry spokesman Andrew Hastie, an Afghanistan veteran, said US President Donald Trump's four to five-week timeline for action in Iran was optimistic.
"I think the rules-based global order is dead and buried and so these sorts of legal arguments are nice, but we live in the world of reality," he told Sky News.
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