Senior correspondent

Ian Goold

Having taken the initiative in UAE commercial aviation, Dubai has a higher airline and airport profile than that of capital city Abu Dhabi and the other emirates. Research group Oxford Economics (OE) predicts that the importance of Dubai’s aviation sector will grow over the next ten years.
Announcing study results jointly with local carrier Emirates Airline, it expects the aviation sector to contribute $44.5 billion to the emirate’s gross domestic product (or 32 percent of the whole) and to provide 372,900 jobs (or about 22 percent of total employment) by 2020 (up from the current 125,000 civil aviation jobs). That compares with the current $22 billion (28 percent of GDP) and 250,000 jobs (19 percent of all). OE calculates Dubai visitors’ expenditure supports more than 130,000 jobs and contributes $7.9 billion to local GDP.
In the past five years, non-domestic passenger numbers at Dubai International Airport have grown from 2005’s 24.8 million to 47.2 million in 2010. The 60-page report–“Explaining Dubai’s aviation model”–concludes that the local industry’s success stems from:
<ul>
<li>government awareness of aviation’s economic importance;</li>
<li>a consensus-based approach to investment;</li>
<li>Dubai’s "open skies" airline route policy;</li>
<li>a focus on growth and efficiently linking underserved markets; and</li>
<li>Dubai’s location between Africa, Asia and Europe and within eight hours’ flying time of two-thirds of the world’s population.</li>
</ul>