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Development of Arab Commercial Aviation in the Persian Gulf Monarchies
Commercial aviation has become one of the most notable examples of successful economic modernization in 21st century, and has brought the national air carriers of the Arab countries to leading positions in the global rankings, substantiated by prestigious professional awards.
The GCC countries contributed to the development of major infrastructure projects and an improvement of commercial aviation performance over the last two decades. Commercial aviation in the region is emerging as one of the centers of the sector worldwide. Investments provided by the royal families have allowed establishing world-famous national carriers in the GCC countries. Especially noteworthy are examples of the UAE (Emirates Airline, Etihad Airways) and Qatar (Qatar Airways).
The favorable geographic location of these countries opened up opportunities for developing international transport hubs (Dubai and Doha) on a global scale between the Eastern and the Western world, which successfully compete with traditional hubs like London, Amsterdam or Istanbul. The accelerated modernization of the Arab monarchies of the Persian Gulf supported by high profits from hydrocarbon sales provide their economic diversification policies
with a strong impetus. That also implies an availability of cheap fuel, which is attracting international airlines to the airports of the Persian Gulf monarchies.
The chapter assesses an extent of the changes and highlights the dynamics of the respective indicators over the period under review. In particular, a majority of the GCC countries significantly increased their freight and passenger traffic using air transport because of the strategical location, advanced airport infrastructure and investments in efficiency of the management. The research also allows making assumptions about possible causes of increase and decrease in quantitative characteristics of freight and passenger traffic and the COVID-19 implications.