Airbus - UAE passenger traffic growth, larger international fleet, customer service

UAE air passenger traffic is constantly growing, it means the fleet of aircraft serving this traffic will significantly grow as well. Logical question – how many of new technicians, pilots and managers will be needed on this market. Here are some quite clear answers – have a look at Global Market Forecast by Airbus. The Global Market Forecast by Airbus maps the demand for aircraft and air travel, providing a detailed insight to airports, airlines and the aviation sector through to the year 2038.  

As it was mentioned in GMF, the fleet size of operators from all regions serving the UAE is forecast to nearly treble to some 1,730 aircraft by 2038 from around 630 today. This includes 750 Small category aircraft like the A320 and A321, and 980 Medium and Large aircraft like the A330neo and A350 serving the UAE market in the next two decades; this as UAE O&D passenger traffic is forecast to grow 5.8% per annum over the next 20 years.

In the wider Middle East region, air passenger traffic is forecast to grow at a rate of 5.6% per year, which is well above the global average of 4.3% per annum. Over the same period, global freight traffic will see an annual increase of 3.6% in line with the average global freight traffic growth. This will stimulate a requirement for some 3,200 aircraft out of a global requirement of 39,210 new passenger and freight aircraft.

Today, five of the World’s Aviation Mega Cities are in the Middle East, with two, Dubai and Abu Dhabi, within the UAE. These will more than double to eleven over the next 20 years, to include such cities as Muscat and Kuwait City.

Tourism will continue to be a key growth sector for the Middle East with commercial aviation a key enabler, with figures from the World Travel and Tourism Council indicating that tourism’s contribution to Middle Eastern GDP is nearly 9% today. 

As the aviation network and traffic continues to develop in the Middle Eastern region, Airbus forecasts a need for more than 50,000 new pilots and nearly 52,000 new technicians over the next 20 years. The commercial aviation services market as a whole is valued at some US$515 bn over the next 20 years in the region, principally in services optimising and maintaining aircraft availability such as maintenance, material management, technicians training and system upgrades, followed by flight operations services including pilot training or Air Traffic Management solutions, and finally passenger services like cabin upgrades, connectivity and ticketing.

In order to be ready for market challenges, Airbus is reinforcing its Dubai-based customer services teams for commercial aircraft, gathering all of them under one roof. Customer support, supplier support, engineering, quality, aircraft structure embodiment and repair, services sales and marketing, business development, flight training and flight operations will all be co-located to better serve African and Middle Eastern carriers.

In addition, the regional organisation will grow from 85 to 105 highly-skilled personnel and will ‘go live’ on January 1st 2020. This new set-up aims at bringing increased efficiency in the support for over 1,000 Airbus aircraft in use with 36 operators in the Africa and Middle East region, while offering new, digitally-enabled services to optimize regional fleets’ operations.

The Airbus Dubai-based Customer Services organisation will also provide technical and training services for Airbus’ customers, as well as tailored solutions for individual airlines’ needs and requirements.