Dubai Airports CEO Update

Transcript

Paul Griffiths:What are the challenges facing Dubai Airports? Well, first of all, I think airports are a legacy of 1950s or earlier thinking, where we design airports around the convenience of the operator, the designer, the systems integrators. It's not really designed around the customer experience, and I think the technology and the processes that we're looking at to will dramatically change what the airport experience is like tomorrow. Dubai International is the largest airport in the world for international passenger traffic, and by the end of 2017, we will have welcomed nearly 90 million passengers through the terminals during the course of the year. And the constraints of the site on which the airport is built are quite considerable. We've got 2 runways that are staggered but parallel and too close together to be segregated in terms of complete independent operations. So there is a capacity limitation, but we are basically charged with making absolutely sure that that airport can deliver the significant throughput increases that we're anticipating, up to about 118 million by 2023. That's the design. I don't think that's ever been done in such a small geographic location. By Q1 of 2018, the expansion of Dubai World Central will take it from 5 to 7 million, which is its current capacity today, to about 25 million passengers. The new expansion of the terminal there will provide baggage systems, transfer facilities, immigration, and check-in. To cope with that number of passengers. But the real big push at DWC will be by 2025, when we expect to open the first phase of DWC Phase 2, which is 120 million passenger capacity, by building 6 new 20 million nodes in the new airport design. We've got about 90 airlines at DXB at the moment, But the number of airlines interested in DWC increases by the day. Whilst there's still capacity at DXB, despite the slot constraints, obviously airlines want to be where other airlines are to maximize the potential of connections between airlines. But DWC offers a very unconstrained environment in which airlines can choose the times at which they arrive and depart, and obviously the space available for them is significant at As DXB starts to run out of capacity, and certain times of the day we're already there, the 3 major peaks which occur during the operating day, which is actually 24/7, which is how we are able to optimize the use of the asset, those windows of opportunity are closing slowly as we get fully subscribed during those hours. So DWC is an option if airlines want to operate at those peak times. Times through the day. We have a very active marketing program for DWC and a route development team who are in touch with airlines from all over the world to explain to them the attractiveness of operating from DWC. And of course, if an airline wants to come and commit to a program, we always have a discussion with them to see how we can make that an easier business decision for them. Obviously Emirates are continuing to expand. They've just taken their 100th A380, and the cooperation between flydubai and Emirates will give both airlines a huge opportunity to synergize their network, to maximize the connectivity between the 2 airlines, and to grow a network which will complement each other to make sure that there are an increasing number of unique destinations Our role at the airport is to facilitate those connections. Clearly, it's going to be quite a challenge to get both flydubai and Emirates co-located in a single terminal, but that is the aim, that over time what we want to do is to reduce the connecting times between the 2 airlines and facilitate a very simple and efficient transfer between the 2 airlines. customer process through a single terminal. It's a logical thing for Qantas to do because the Qantas-Emirates partnership will actually deepen as a result of the move of the Qantas flights to Singapore, and it offers Qantas an alternative hub to be able to serve their passengers and also put their services to Europe in connection with other services from all over Asia. So Emirates are increasing frequency from Dubai to compensate for the Qantas services that are going to be moved. And I think the joint offering between the 2 carriers is stronger as a result. You can still travel on a Qantas flight number to Dubai and then across the Emirates network to various points in Europe, Africa, and the USA, and you'll be able to travel using an EK code on Qantas services. So the partnership goes from strength to strength, and the route network simply gives both carriers greater spread of the Asian and Australasian markets. Well, I think the thing is, of course, operating into an intercontinental hub means that you have to have a depth of understanding and reciprocity that makes the relationship work very well. And if it's an unbalanced relationship, usually those relationships don't tend to have longevity. And I think, you know, the way Emirates and Qantas have worked together, it is a very complementary deal, and it's worked very well for both carriers. Yes, other partnerships where airlines have a huge inequality of benefit and disbenefit, then obviously those partnerships don't tend to last very long.

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