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New airport hit by delays

The Dubai airport designed to be the world's largest passenger hub could delay its 2011 launch by several months, an official said yesterday.

Paul Griffiths, chief executive of Dubai Airports, said the previously announced March 2011 commencement of passenger flights from Al Maktoum International Airport was now subject to doubts.

The airport, which could eventually serve 160 million passengers a year when further infrastructure is added over time, commenced cargo flights earlier this year.

"At the moment, we are reviewing the opening date and it looks as if it'll be later in the year," Griffiths told Reuters yesterday.
"We are going to review the passenger terminal capacity and state of construction in a couple of months and then we'll be looking at a date."

Griffiths said the ongoing expansion of the existing Dubai International Airport, which will be able to serve 90 million passengers a year by 2018, had taken the pressure off the team behind Al Maktoum International to complete the project within its original timeframe.

But while work on the region's largest aviation project is showing sign of slowing, plans to increase the number of private airfields and aircraft serving the Gulf's wealthy is progressing apace, according to experts gathered in Dubai yesterday for the Middle East Business Aviation 2010 event.

Despite the economic downturn, billions of dollars are still being spent by governments and private firms alike in a bid to attract highly sought after executive traveller.

In Abu Dhabi, further work on Al Bateen Executive Airport, the region's sole facility devoted purely to private jets, is pressing ahead. A total of $50 million has already been spent on revamping the former military airport so that it meets the standards of so-called 'VVIPs'.

The airport's newly appointed general manager Stephen Jones said yesterday that further upgrades - including more exclusive retail outlets and a new hotel - would be move ahead as planned in 2011.

"These future developments are designed to make us the best business airport in the world," he said yesterday. "It is all part of a strategy model to radically change business aviation in the region."

The airport's management team are looking to sell time to executives - capitalising on the airport's location ten minutes from Abu Dhabi corniche, and its fast-track procedures for processing passengers.

However, existing operators are not giving up on the biggest-spending air travellers without a fight, and established commercial airlines including Qatar Airways and Saudi Arabian Airlines are already committed to operating their own private jet businesses.

More airports serving the market are expected, and while the private aviation sector is anticipated to show healthy growth in future years the competition between operators and airports will be fierce.

"We are not up against amateurs... we are in quite a tough market," Jones said yesterday. "It is not like it was five years ago when you just had to sit there and business came to you."

© 7Days 2010