Dubai Air Present 2021: Here is what to anticipate

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai’s final worldwide air present, in November of 2019, seems like one other period.

Only a few months earlier than the Covid-19 pandemic turned journey the wrong way up, the highly-attended biennial aviation occasion celebrated an trade that appears very completely different at present. 

However practically two years after the journey and airline industries got here to a close to standstill, the market is choosing up once more.    

The 2021 Dubai Air Present kicks off on Sunday, November 14. Here is what to anticipate:

Issues have been wanting up for journey with the continued profitable rollout of vaccination campaigns and easing of governments’ Covid restrictions. 

“Executives are cautiously optimistic concerning the future,” aviation analysts at consultancy Accenture wrote in a be aware forward of the present.

The agency predicts 13% development year-on-year in 2022 for industrial aerospace globally, although the 12 months will nonetheless be 4% beneath 2019 ranges. 

Dubai flagship provider Emirates Airline — the Center East’s largest airline and largest plane purchaser — has loved a few of that restoration itself, narrowing its earlier losses with a 86% surge in income for its half-year earnings for the 2021-2022 monetary 12 months.  

Nonetheless, worries about potential new Covid variants, inflation and rising power costs go away a big quantity of uncertainty for the trade. Dubai’s present is certain to see loads of discussions on trade restoration, in addition to ways in which aviation has turn out to be safer and extra hygienic because of the pandemic. 

Due partially to that uncertainty and in addition as a result of Dubai hosts a smaller air present than the Paris or Farnborough occasions, analysts do not anticipate to see many main orders this 12 months. It is also as a result of the order books for Gulf carriers “are usually extra widebody targeted,” mentioned Sheila Kahyaoglu, aerospace and protection analyst at Jefferies. “So I believe that given worldwide site visitors is slower, I simply do not suppose that might be a catalyst for extra orders.”

The worldwide provide chain crunch has impacted many sectors, and aerospace has been no exception.

Inside aviation, provide chain shortages are largely hitting the protection area, Kahyaoglu mentioned. “In communications programs, ships, semiconductor elements — simply wherever it is hitting the remainder of the world.”

Within the enterprise jet section, there’s much less of an impression as fewer non-public jets are manufactured per 12 months than different kinds of plane, but it surely nonetheless “creates a little bit of a scarcity on elements, so OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] should be cognizant of their materials purchases,” Kahyaoglu mentioned.     

Greater than half of aerospace executives — 55% — “expressed decrease confidence of their provide chain timeliness and high quality over the subsequent six months,” in accordance with Accenture.

Just one air site visitors section has gone above 2019 ranges, and that is cargo. 

Folks might have stopped touring for a protracted interval, however e-commerce and the motion of merchandise has continued to develop. Earlier than the pandemic, a big quantity of cargo was transported within the stomach of passenger planes. However after these planes went offline as journey restrictions went up, says Richard Aboulafia, vice chairman of study at Teal Group, “hastily folks mentioned, ‘Hey, we want devoted cargo jets as a result of that stomach cargo is not accessible.'”

Anticipate to see Airbus and Boeing — the world’s two largest aerospace firms by income — show new giant freighter variations of current plane, Aboulafia mentioned. 

“You may see Airbus discuss, perhaps even launch, a freighter model of the A350 XWB jetliner,” he advised CNBC.

“And also you would possibly see precisely the identical factor from Boeing with the freighter model of the 777X, the most recent model of the 777, which has composite wings and such. That’ll be actually attention-grabbing to look at as a result of the Gulf is a reasonably large giant cargo market.” 

Certainly, in Emirates Airline’s newest half-year earnings, cargo operations have been strong, seeing a 39% enhance and bringing the enterprise to 90% of the amount it had in 2019.

When it comes to protection, eyes will nonetheless be on whether or not the sale of the Lockheed Martin F-35 II Joint Strike fighter jet to the UAE, penned within the remaining day of the Trump administration, will see any progress. The mammoth $23 billion sale, comprised primarily of fifty F-35 jets and no less than 18 armed drones, is reportedly nonetheless being negotiated between Washington and Abu Dhabi. 

Beforehand, U.S. legal guidelines and export laws prevented it from promoting deadly drones or the F-35 to any of its Arab allies. However adjustments carried out by the Trump administration have made this attainable, that means that if it is accomplished, it could be the primary sale of the F-35 and U.S.-made armed drones to any Arab nation. 

There’s additionally a “basic development towards continued modernization of fighter fleets, largely modernized fourth-generation platforms,” mentioned Justin Bronk, analysis fellow for airpower and know-how on the Royal United Companies Institute in London.

Fourth-generation broadly refers to fighter jets in service from the Nineteen Eighties till now, with multi-combat roles and extra superior know-how than its predecessors, like infrared search and monitor capabilities and digital avionics.