Letter from Dubai … and Sharjah
Hello all from the extraordinary aviation hub here at Dubai. It didn’t even have an airport until 1960, and that was a sand strip only suitable for DC-3s, the proper runway opened in 1966, and since then the growth has been stratospheric.Dubai airport (DXB) is still (for now) pretty much downtown, hemmed in on all sides, and well known as the vast base for Emirates widebodies, while at another terminal is FlyDubai, with it’s own substantial fleet of 737s. Just a couple of miles north is Sharjah, a separate Emirate, whose airport is now home to an equally very substantial fleet of A320s of Air Arabia, and is one of those places close enough to another airport that they have had the odd mistaken landing there for DXB before now. Down at the south end of town is the vast area of the desert marked out for the replacement Dubai airport, Al Maktoum, ultimately to be way larger than DFW, which is starting to get going now and where the all-cargo fleet of Emirates already runs from. An hour’s drive down the road and you get to Abu Dhabi, base for Emirates’ big competitor Etihad, another worldwide A380 and others operation. Etihad actually have a check-in in central Dubai, with a bus that takes you over to Abu Dhabi.
All in all, it’s a vast aviation hub area, and that’s before you start counting visiting carriers from just about everywhere else imaginable – when we arrived there was an Air Canada B787 alongside one of the various obscure Iranian operators that hop across the Gulf. There are plenty of destinations where all four of the main hub carriers operate to.Another feature is everything seems to operate 24x7, at DXB departures at 2am are just as plentiful as at 2pm. About 95% of the population of Dubai are “expats”, principally from India and Pakistan, but also from a whole range of places around, and much of the air service has developed bringing them to and fro. Just about every jet-capable Indian airport has services to combinations of the airports here.
Sharjah, the quite open border running along the north side of DXB, has a notably different feel to the buildings, and a different style. Shorts for men are fully acceptable in Dubai … but not in Sharjah. Drink, readily available in Dubai, is banned in Sharjah. Property prices are way lower. And so on. But the Sheikh has funded a SPLENDID airline museum. And here it is https://www.google.com/maps/@25.3458306,55.3947684,3a,75y,82.56h,91.78t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sTec-YC4YUfElj-aiGvenow!2e0!7i13312!8i6656 . It’s the original old Sharjah airport, actually a British RAF base, the RAF left in 1971 but the buildings remain. Principal sponsor at the opening was the main carrier, Gulf Air. Now Gulf Air have very much retreated, Emirates, Etihad, Air Arabia etc taking their place, and they now only operate a reduced fleet out of Bahrain. But the museum rolls on, immaculately clean, great exhibits – just nobody there.
First airport in the region ... and proud of it.
Ours was, alas, one of only two cars in the immaculately swept parking lot
