Dubai Air Show 2021: Here’s what to expect
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai’s last international air show, in November of 2019, feels like another era.
A few months prior to the Covid-19 epidemic that turned travel upside-down, the biennial aviation conference was attended by thousands and celebrated an industry which looks quite different.
The market has been recovering for nearly two years, almost exactly 2 years after airlines and the travel industry came to an abrupt halt.
Starts Sunday, November 14th with the 2021 Dubai Air Show What can you expect?
Recovering the travel industry?
The continued success in vaccination campaigns has helped to improve travel prospects.
Accenture, a consultancy that specializes in aviation analysis, wrote “Executives remain cautiously optimistic about what the future,” before the show.
While the company predicts an 13% increase in global commercial aerospace revenue year-over-year by 2022, 2019 was still 4% lower than 2019.
Dubai flagship carrier Emirates Airline — the Middle East’s largest airline and biggest aircraft buyer — has enjoyed some of that recovery itself, narrowing its previous losses with a 86% surge in revenue for its half-year earnings for the 2021-2022 financial year.
The industry is still facing significant uncertainty due to concerns about possible new Covid variants as well as rising energy prices and inflation. Dubai will host a lot of discussion about industry recovery and ways aviation can become more safe and hygienic because of the pandemic.
Analysts aren’t expecting to receive many orders because of this uncertainty. Sheila Kahyaoglu at Jefferies said this is also due to the fact that order books for Gulf carriers are “more widebody-focused.” Because international traffic is slow, it doesn’t seem like there will be any increase in orders.
Issues within the Supply Chain
Many sectors have been affected by the global supply chain crisis, including aerospace.
Kahyaoglu stated that supply shortages in aviation are most common within the defense sector. “In communications systems, ships, semiconductor parts — just wherever it’s hitting the rest of the world.”
Although the impact of business jets is lower than that of other aircraft types, this still causes a “bit of a shortage of parts,” so OEMs should be aware. [original equipment manufacturers]Kahyaoglu explained that people should be mindful of what they buy.
More than half of aerospace executives — 55% — “expressed lower confidence in their supply chain timeliness and quality over the next six months,” according to Accenture.
Cargo winning
One segment of air traffic has not reached 2019 standards, and it’s cargo.
While people might have stopped travelling for quite some time, the growth of ecommerce and product movement has not been affected. A significant amount of cargo used to be transported by passenger planes before the pandemic. Richard Aboulafia from Teal Group vice president of analysis, said that when those planes were shut down due to travel restrictions, people suddenly realized that dedicated cargo jets are needed because the belly cargo was no longer available.
Be prepared to be amazed AirbusAnd Boeing — the world’s two largest aerospace companies by revenue — display new large freighter versions of existing aircraft, Aboulafia said.
He told CNBC that Airbus would talk to CNBC about launching a freighter version the A350XWB jetliner.
Boeing might do the exact same thing with its freighter version of 777X. It is the latest version of the 777X and has composite wings. It will be fascinating to see, as the Gulf cargo market is very large.
Emirates Airline has reported strong cargo operations in its latest half-year earnings. They saw an increase of 39% and have now reached 90% of their 2019 volume.
Military sales
On defense matters, all eyes will be focused on the possibility that the Lockheed Martin F-35 II Joint Strike fighter aircraft to the UAE will go through. This sale was finalized by the Trump administration. A massive sale of $23Billion, consisting primarily 50 F-35 planes and at minimum 18 armed drones is still being negotiated by Washington and Abu Dhabi.
The United States had previously prohibited the sale of lethal drones and F-35s to its Arab allies under export laws. Trump’s administration made these changes possible. This would make it the first ever sale of F-35s and U.S.-made, armed drones to Arab countries.
Justin Bronk from the Royal United Services Institute, London, said that there is also an “general trend towards continued modernization of Fighter Fleets, mostly fourth-generation platforms.”
The fourth-generation refers broadly to all fighter jets that were in service between the 1980s and now. They have multi-combat roles, advanced technology, and are more capable than their predecessors like digital avionics and infrared track and search capabilities.
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