The United Arab Emirates (UAE) celebrates its 40th anniversary next month on December 2, and aviation has always been at the forefront of the young country’s ambitious development plans. This week’s Dubai Air Show reveals just how far the Arabian Gulf state has come from being purely a consumer of aviation products to being a service provider and manufacturer of growing stature in the global industry.
The country–formerly the British-protected Trucial States–became independent in December 1971 as part of a unification move among neighboring sheikhdoms very much stimulated by the discovery of oil in the early 1960s. Since then, aviation and to a lesser, but growing, extent aerospace has contributed to the UAE’s diversification of its economy through national and local government initiatives, most visibly through airport and airline investment. In fact, airports serving both Dubai and Abu Dhabi pre-date UAE independence, having opened in 1960 and 1969, respectively. The emirates of Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah are each served by their own airports, despite the relatively short distances between them.
