Tag Archives: airport
Emirates launches new flights to Japan
Japanese investors who hold assets in the UAE will find it much easier to travel between the two countries after Dubai-based airline Emirates added new flights to Tokyo International Airport (Haneda). Thierry Antinori, Emirates’ executive vice president of passenger sales worldwide, said the firm first started providing services to the Far East in 2002 when it established a route between Dubai and Osaka. He insisted that relations between the two nations have blossomed since then. In fact, figures provided by Japan External Trade Organisation confirmed that traders in the two countries completed deals worth $53.1 billion (£9.43 billion) in 2012, which was a 5.4 per cent upturn on the previous year. Mr Antinori described Haneda as Emirates’ “third gateway” into Japan and is confident that demand for passenger and cargo services is high enough to justify laying on another daily flight. “We value our partnership with Tokyo International Airport; it is one that helps to connect two global hubs of development and growth – Japan and the UAE. We know that Haneda will play an integral role in our route network and the launch of services demonstrates Emirates’ commitment to Japan,” he remarked. By adding this new service, Emirates SkyCargo – the firm’s freight transport division – will be able to carry an additional 23 tonnes of goods per flight, which equates to an extra 160 tonnes each week. Emirates now operates services to 134 destinations in 77 countries from Dubai and plans are in place to increase this in the near future. The business has already underlined its commitment to the European market and new flights to Stockholm in Sweden will be launched in September 2013. Australia is another important destination for Emirates and the firm revealed last month that Brisbane would be the third city in the country to accommodate its double-decker A380 aircraft. With so many new flights being added, it is no surprise that experts are predicting Dubai International Airport will become the world’s busiest aviation hub within the next few years. Continue reading
Dubai ‘is a safe haven for investors’
Corporations from across the Gulf still see Dubai as a safe place to invest their money and set up new bases, it has been claimed.Nicholas Bortman, head of Middle East research for business consultancy GPW, believes the city continues to benefit from the troubles that have affected a number of Arab countries, Al Jazeera reports.Investors and tourists generally prefer the stability of Dubai over volatile places like Egypt and Bahrain.”There are no exact numbers, but there is little doubt that there has been a lot of movement of firms from Arab Spring countries to Dubai,” Mr Bortman was quoted as saying.”Particularly for regional investors, Dubai is a safe haven.”Ahmed Kanna, professor of anthropology at the University of the Pacific agreed that Dubai has been “one of the biggest victors” from the Arab Spring and that people generally regard the emirate as the go-to place when things start to get out of hand in their own lands.The UAE's economy expanded by 4.4 per cent in 2012, which was the strongest performance seen since 2006 and this was streets ahead of most European nations.Dubai's construction industry has recovered well from the global economic downturn of 2008-09 and people from all over the world are securing property investments in the city.In fact, the Dubai Land Department confirmed in April that 32 properties were registered every hour during the first quarter of 2013 – a 63 per cent increase when compared with the corresponding months in 2012.Overall, deals worth a staggering AED 44 billion (£7.7 billion) were completed over the three-month period.Much of the upturn has been attributed to significant growth in the tourism sector and figures recently provided by Dubai Airports highlighted a massive rise in the number of people flying into the emirate.Indeed, some 66 million passengers are predicted to travel into Dubai International Airport throughout 2013 and tourism chiefs are confident that wealthy holidaymakers will spend more money in the city, thus boosting the economy even further. Continue reading
Dubai airport passenger numbers up 19% in April
April was the fifth consecutive month with more than five million passengers passing through the Dubai airport. Dubai International recorded nine straight months of double-digit growth as passenger numbers in April jumped 18.7 per cent to 5.41 million over the same period last year, operator Dubai Airports said in a statement on Monday. It added that April was the fifth consecutive month with more than five million passengers passing through the world’s second busiest airport for international passenger traffic. India led the April growth at the Dubai airport with a total of 672,557 passengers, followed by the UK (419,053) and Saudi Arabia (405,695), Doha (207,146), London (201,587) and Jeddah (151,517), as per the report. The year to date traffic, meanwhile, increased by 16.3 per cent to 21.9 million passengers compared to 18.8 million recorded in the first four months of 2012, Dubai Airports said, adding that the largest increase in total passenger numbers was recorded on the Western European routes (+207,120 passengers). And the Middle Eastern routes that were affected by political instability until the beginning of 2013 recorded moderate growth in April (+23,365). Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, said in a statement that growth should continue at a similar pace in the next quarter and beyond. “Accordingly we are continually increasing capacity at Dubai International, the most recent example of which was the opening of the first phase of expansion at Terminal 2,” he said. Aircraft movements at the airport, meanwhile, increased by 6.9 per cent to 30,469 compared to 28,503 recorded in April 2012, as per the estimates, while year to date aircraft movements totalled 121,599, an increase of 6.2 per cent compared to 114,517 during the same period in 2012. On the cargo front, April saw freight volumes increase by 7.3 per cent to 199,985 tons compared to 186,385 tons in April 2012. And the year to date cargo totalled 784,832 tons, up 11.5 per cent to 703,826 tons during the first four months last year. Continue reading
