With a youthful, well-educated population, strong relationships with both neighbours and world powers, and a strategic location on the Gulf, major oil producer Kuwait should be as dynamic a hub for the region as Dubai or Doha. But while others in the Gulf have powered ahead, attracting foreign investment and developing infrastructure, Kuwait has stagnated, frustrating the people of a country once seen as a Middle East […]
After pouring billions of dollars into cities including London, New York and Sydney, individual investors and developers in China are expanding into Dubai. About a thousand individual Chinese investors spent 1.3 billion U.A.E dirhams ($353 million) on land, residential units and office real estate in Dubai last year, according to data from the Dubai Land Department. That is a nearly threefold increase from the 486 million dirhams […]
SpiceJet Ltd., the Indian budget carrier headed for its third straight annual loss, said it sees little chance of luring investment soon amid elevated debt and intensifying competition. Although the airline’s owners have injected more than 5 billion rupees ($83 million) in equity in recent quarters, that “has not been adequate” to reduce the carrier’s dependence on debt, S.L. Narayanan, the chief financial officer of SpiceJet’s parent […]
Qatar Airways Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said he’s pursuing acquisitions after reviving an investment strategy that saw the company offered stakes in carriers including Italy’s Alitalia SpA. The second-biggest Gulf airline is “actively discussing opportunities” with other passenger carriers, Al Baker said in an interview, without specifying where talks are focused. “I would not like to pre-empt our decision,” he said. “We would rather […]
Dubai plans to almost double the number of hotel rooms by 2020 as it expects a surge of visitors to the desert sheikhdom ahead of that year’s World Expo. The emirate that spent more than $110 billion to transform itself into the Middle East’s commercial and entertainment hub is seeking to attract 20 million tourists annually by the end of the decade, Helal Saeed Almarri, director general […]
Competition is hotting up among low-cost carriers in the Persian Gulf. That’s according to analysts at NBK Capital, who say government-owned FlyDubai’s aggressive expansion is having a negative impact on publically-listed Air Arabia at its Sharjah hub. FlyDubai and Air Arabia already overlap on 40 destinations from their respective airports, which are just a short drive away from each other. In total, Air Arabia offers 70 destinations […]
Emirates, the world’s biggest airline by international passenger traffic, is seeking to raise about $2 billion from four loans to fund the purchase of planes, according to two people familiar with the matter. The Dubai government-owned carrier will pay interest of less than 200 basis points, or two percentage points, above the London interbank offered rate on the 12-year amortising loans, said one of the people, who […]
|By Rory Jones, Doug Cameron | The head of Emirates Airline said Tuesday that establishing a U.S. Customs post at its Dubai hub could create a logistical nightmare, just as the world’s largest carrier of international passengers ramps up for fresh expansion to North America. The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency in January opened a post in Dubai’s neighbor, Abu Dhabi, to allow passengers there to […]
Qatar will likely face higher labor costs as a result of publicity about deaths of migrant construction workers building the infrastructure for the 2022 World Cup soccer tournament, the International Monetary Fund said. Britain’s Guardian newspaper reported in September that dozens of Nepali workers had died during the summer in Qatar and that laborers were not given enough food and water. Qatar, which has denied the Guardian’s […]
A Malaysia Airlines flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing went missing over the South China Sea on Saturday, prompting China to send ships to scour the water for possible wreckage. The airline, speaking several hours after the plane had been due to land in the Chinese capital, said it was still too early to say whether the aircraft had crashed. It […]
DAMAC Properties has unveiled a luxury serviced hotel apartments project at the heart of the emirate’s proposed Expo 2020 site. Celestia, as it is known, will comprise of studios, one and two bedroom apartments across an eight-floor complex and will be located in Dubai World Central Residential City, near to the new Al Maktoum International Airport. Facilities will include a retail area featuring fine-dining restaurants and designer […]
Emirates airline said its alliance with Australia’s Qantas was working and had helped the Gulf carrier to improve yields, after some analysts questioned the benefits of the partnership. Qantas is reducing its workforce by 15 percent, slashing spending and selling gas-guzzling older planes after stiff competition at home and overseas pushed the Australian flag carrier deep into the red in the first half. The loss in Qantas’s […]
Dubai is considering listing some of its largest and most valuable state-controlled companies such as the Emirates airline in a move that could raise billions of pounds in revenue. Mohammed al-Shaibani, Dubai’s finance chief, revealed that some of the state-owned companies could also be partially floated on the London Stock Exchange and signalled that the emirate views the UK as a strategic location for future investment. “We […]
Qatar Airways Ltd. Chief Executive Officer Akbar Al Baker said the airline’s expansion into India will depend on whether the government will further open the nation’s skies after elections due by May. In January, India’s aviation ministry lifted a ban on Airbus Group NV (AIR)’s A380 from entering the country and allowed airlines to fly the double-decker planes to four airports, including New Delhi and Mumbai. Authorities […]
A last official link between the Gulf’s colonial era and its commercially dynamic present, Bill Duff devoted his life to Dubai and played a bigger part than any other westerner in the early transformation of the emirate from obscure outpost into global hub. Duff, who has died aged 91, arrived as an economic adviser in 1959 in what were called the Trucial states. His mission came at […]
Increase in number of seats in flights between India and Dubai will allow for multiple choice of travel and cheap connections for Indian passengers, sectoral experts said. “Enhancement of seat quotas with Dubai is a good thing for both countries. It will help enhance supply of seats, increase competition and help bring down fares,” said Amber Dubey, partner and India head of aerospace and defense at global […]
Passenger traffic through Dubai International airport rose 15.1 percent from a year earlier to a record 6.40 million people in January, airport authorities said on Wednesday. The traffic was boosted by a seasonal rush of holiday makers into Dubai, as the emirate held the annual Dubai Shopping Festival. Cargo volumes in January totalled 197,021 tonnes, an increase of 4.5 percent.
Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) helped American customers hide as much as $10 billion in assets from the Internal Revenue Service, more than double the amount previously known, according to a U.S. Senate committee. A report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations criticized the Zurich-based bank for failing to discipline any senior executives in the face of widespread tax evasion fostered by 1,800 Credit Suisse employees […]
|By Pranay Gupta| When I look out of the windows of my 25th-floor apartment in Dubai, I see the Persian Gulf shimmering a few blocks away. Cruise ships are parked at the dockyard, and in the blue waters beyond a steady stream of oil-laden tankers head out to quench the world’s thirst for black gold. Closer to me are other skyscrapers, vast shopping centers, and crowded convention […]
A U.S. border checkpoint located a day’s flight from New York in the Arabian desert promises to become an oasis for weary travelers heading for the States. U.S. Customs and Border Protection opened an Abu Dhabi base on Jan. 24, the first in the Middle East and the second outside the Americas after Ireland. Another post is planned in Dubai within a year as part of a […]
HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum has been cleared of any wrongdoing following a doping scandal at his Godolphin racing organisation that saw a trainer banned for eight years, an internal report said on Wednesday. HH Sheikh Mohammed, Dubai’s ruler and Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE, commissioned a report by Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police chief commissioner, to investigate the scandal and interview key […]
Dubai’s Emirates flagship airline plans to ground 19 or 20 planes from May because of runway construction work at Dubai International Airport, the airline’s president Tim Clark said on Monday. That number of planes represents roughly 10 percent of the airline’s fleet of about 200 planes. The work is expected to be finished by July 20, Clark told reporters. “It’ll have an impact on the revenue. We […]
Air carriers flying to Winter Olympics host Russia were warned today to watch for toothpaste tubes containing materials that could be turned into a bomb, a U.S. law enforcement official said. The official declined to elaborate on the intelligence that sparked the warning, which was sent to U.S. and foreign airlines, just two days before the start of the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia. Security at Sochi […]
Pumping his fist into the Paris air, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, an Abu Dhabi royal, celebrated the award of the 2020 World Expo to Dubai. A Dubai counterpart returned the favor three weeks later, hailing Abu Dhabi’s role in securing the event. The backslapping late last year signaled the ever-closer relationship between the sheikhdoms at the core of the seven-member United Arab Emirates, one a […]
