That's more like it

It's back to basics with the official opening of the new Dubai World Central/Al Maktoum airport.

As I've said in many previous posts, Dubai is all about trading and always was. It's the reason for its very existence.

The city's economy has always been based on trading, on doing business. Spurts of growth have come as a result of forward-thinking investment in infrastructure based on growing the business base.

The feverish concentration on residential real estate over the past six or so years, particularly as it was unplanned and unregulated, had nothing to do with what Dubai's all about and it's caused most of the problems we're experiencing now.

In the sixties the investment in business infrastructure was the dredging of The Creek, using money borrowed from oil-rich Kuwait, to allow larger cargo boats to use it as a base.

The then ruler Sheikh Rashid also invested in excellent, for the time, telecoms infrastructure.

For access for business people and cargo he invested in Dubai International Airport and Port Rashid.

That good communications infrastructure led to international companies relocating their Middle East offices to Dubai when they left Beirut because of the civil war in the early seventies.

Then came Jebel Ali Port and money was also put into industrial development, such as Dubal, Ducab, all now highly successful and profitable.

I was here in those days and I remember the scepticism, and ridicule, about it all. They were dismissed as 'a waste of money' and 'ego trip developments'. Jebel Ali Port had no commercial future, it was far too big and not on any major trade routes, it was really for the US fleet to use as a base.

The same ridicule is not uncommon about the new airport. Why on earth does Dubai need the biggest airport in the world? What a huge waste of money on a grandiose ego trip. And there have been many gleeful posts on blogs and other sites saying with authority that it was one of the projects cancelled when the economic meltdown hit.

I remember an interview a few years back with someone high up in the airport management, I forget who it was. His point was that it wasn't about what we need now but is about planning ahead, anticipating what would be needed thirty or forty years in the future.

His made the points that land is at a premium in the emirate and if it wasn't reserved now for the airport it wouldn't be available when it was needed in forty or fifty years time. The airport wouldn't be the biggest in the world for some years, it would be constructed in stages depending on demand. And of course it was close to Jebel Ali Port to conveniently link sea and air cargo.

Appropriately the new airport has opened with cargo carriers, while passenger traffic is due to begin next March.



Gulf News has a report on the opening of the new airport here.

Changing times

It's reported that Dubai International Airport was the world's fastest growing in 2007. More than 34 million passengers were handled and on average there were 725 arrivals & departures each day.

It's all very different from my first arrival in Dubai back in 1977. Then the main entrance looked like this...



Aaahhhh...

Late addition.
Folks, if you read the comments to this posting you'll see that Anonymous enhanced the photo. As s/he took the trouble to do that I thought I should say 'thanks' by posting the improved photo...

Dubai has world's best airport.

I must say I can't agree with Conde Nast Traveller magazine Readers' Travel Awards that Dubai has the world's best airport.

It's up there amongst the best I do agree, but Changi would have to come above. I haven't been into Hong Kong's new airport, but that's also been getting rave reviews.

I suspect it's all in the questionaire, the way it was formulated. DIA is certainly conveniently located for the city, it's new, the signage is good etc etc. But there are three major faults.

One, the huge distances you have to walk between aircraft and exit.

Two, the absolute chaos as you reach the exit. Huge uncontrolled crowds of people blocking the exit down to a single channel.

Three, the bodies sleeping not just on almost every seat but also all over the floor where you have to weave around or clamber over them.

Sort those problems out and maybe Dubai would compete with Changi.

Changing times in the City of Dust

Each time I come into Dubai Airport I swear the hike from the aircraft to the taxi stand takes almost as long as the flight. Is there another airport with such huge distances to walk?

Somehow I always land between two and three am after a sleepless night flight, then have to stumble miles along a seemingly endless corridor, climbing over the dozens of sleeping bodies strewn all over the place - not a good look for a self-proclaimed up-market destination I always think. When I do eventually reach the end and turn the corner...there's another identical miles-long corridor stretching beyond the horizon.

Eventually I do come to the end of it all and then into the e-gate machine. What a great time-saving invention that is, full marks for that. On to the taxi stand and, for the second consecutive time, a female taxi driver. Smart & clean in her uniform, polite, drove all the way down Sheikh Zayed Road to Dubai Marina below the speed limit and correctly using the indicators. I'll repeat that - below the speed limit and correctly using the indicators.

A male taxi driver who overtook us seemed to find a female driver a novelty. He glanced into our cab as he screamed passed, dropped back then pulled alongside gabbling at his three European passengers while pointing at our driveress. Stayed alongside for about a kilometre, eventually got bored so did the big macho number and hit the accelerator hard.

Singapore daytime was 31C and 'orribly 'umid - Dubai was the same at 3am. I actually found the humidity there much more oppressive, but I sure didn't miss the dust that swamped us as we drove through 'New Dubai'.