The Message From Dubai

   The Ninth Dubai Air Show that closed last week may have once upon a time been a little brother to some other events of the same kind, including the fabled LeBourget yearly called The Paris Air Show.
   But if the order book generated for Boeing and Airbus from The United Arab Emirates in the last seven days is any indication, “Forget Paris” was the most descriptive headline.
   Together Boeing and Airbus racked up nearly 110 orders for new large commercial aircraft including a mega-order from Emirates for the super-range, B777-200 that will allow the carrier to open new routes on both coasts of the USA if it chooses and almost anywhere else on Planet Earth it might fancy to serve.
   That $9.7 billion order for 42 B777s with another two billion to Rolls Royce for enough of the most powerful aircraft engines currently being manufactured to power the aircraft, was in a word, stunning.
   Emirates reminded some, as Pan Am once did when it help launch the B747 nearly forty years ago, that if Boeing bets the company on an aircraft as it actually did with the B777, and now the B787, it can win.
   Another bet is that the B787 will soon follow the B777 into the future plans of the emerging Middle East powerhouse carriers.
Airbus, which might have been on the ropes as Boeing made their announcements on the first day of the Dubai Air Show, affected a tremendous comeback of sorts with big orders from Jazeera Airways of Kuwait and ALAFCO, a Kuwait-based leasing company for 12 A350s, plus a satchel of other orders.
   Off-putting to say the least is all this back room and public bickering and carrying on between Boeing and Airbus about who is getting what help in positioning itself as the most successful big airplane builder.
   Boeing and Airbus are locked in a competition that both are winning, while spending their hard-earned money suing the pants off each other claiming unfair government support.
   The truth is that both the U.S. and Europe have used whatever means necessary to prop up their aerospace industries since airplanes were made out of wood and fabric.
   Here is Boeing boss Jim McNearney with his fist around a $9 billion dollar Emirates order, while Noel Foregard the boss at Airbus says that the plane maker has got to hurry up and produce orders worth US$245 billion during the next six years.
   We are supposed to feel sorry for either of these companies?
   Their bickering just looks and sounds stupid.
   Both companies should get over themselves, and just build the planes already.
   The interesting thing is we often hear similar bitching and moaning from airline chieftains of Air France, Qantas and British and some others about Emirates that now is rated as the second most profitable airline in the world.
   The commercial aviation business and the rest of the world should recognize that the new center for what’s next and exciting in commercial aviation is coming out of the desert, loud and clear.
   Dubai 2005 was the largest Dubai Air Show featuring 726 exhibitors from 46 countries, 15 national pavilions and over 100 aircraft.
   The show was 25% larger than the previous exhibition, Dubai 2003, with growth being accommodated by the building of a third exhibition hall – Central Hall – at the Airport Expo site. Declared on-site order sales tally from the show reached US $21.3 billion, the highest ever in the event’s history.
   The message from Dubai last week in a nutshell is that everybody will be busy, as skies open up and are filled with new airplanes and new airlines from Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, Amman, Doha and elsewhere.
   With new mega-airports and the aircraft to keep them busy, the commercial airline business will continue to grow and prosper as the world takes wing.
   It’s an exciting time right now that is only going to get better.
(Geoffrey)