Focused on success

Ambitious airport development projects in the Gulf States appear to be bearing fruit, with record numbers of passengers passing through despite the global economic downturn. Aviation correspondent Saul Wordsworth explores the reasons for this success with Olivier Jankovec, director-general of ACI Europe.

The states of the Arabian Peninsula are among the wealthiest in the world, and the region’s airport developments are increasingly ambitious (see: ADAC unveils executive airport plans).

Even though the region has a relatively small population, its economic prosperity is helping to generate the world’s fastest growth in passenger numbers through its airports.

Airport expansion projects in the region are estimated to be worth US$46 billion over the next 20 years, of which US$22.5 billion will be implemented in the UAE alone: Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and even the tiny emirate of Ajman are each ploughing an average of US$4 billion into airport development.

National development policies
Olivier Jankovec, director-general of ACI Europe, says such unprecedented development is driven principally by the national policies that the governments of these states have put in place in an attempt to diversify their economies away from the natural resources of oil and gas. He claims they are using aviation as the primary vehicle for achieving that diversification.

“Aviation is a key element in national economic policies,” says Jankovec, “and the objective is to develop flourishing economies based on tourism, financial services, communications and trade. By developing an integrated aviation policy you have all the industries working in the same direction. They have very close links – we would call them, in Europe, incestuous links – between airports, airlines, security, ground handling companies, national aviation authorities, tourism boards, tourism ministries and hotels. All these components work in the same direction towards the same objectives – and that allows lower costs.”

Engine of globalisation
Jankovec says that the area in which the Gulf diverges mostly noticeably from Europe is the way these states recognise the unique role that aviation can play in economic development – and how aviation can be used as an engine of globalisation.

“The part aviation plays in their long term economic development strategy should give Europe something to think about. In the EU, the impression we give is that the benefits of aviation are at best simply a given. If you look at the Lisbon strategy that the EU has put in place – the strategy that hopes to make the EU the most competitive regional economy by 2010 – the role of aviation has never been clarified. We don’t have that – they do in the Gulf.”

Jankovec believes that as long as security can be maintained in a region that borders the unstable areas of the Middle East, then it will continue to flourish.

“Through diversification of national economies there has been a great boom in tourism. Dubai has become a financial centre and communications centre, and is about to become a logistical one. Abu Dhabi has branded itself a cultural centre and this too has worked. They’re doing these things in a very intelligent way.”

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