Expectations at Dubai Airshow 2023 run high as the international show circuit resumes normal service after three years of upheaval. Event planners aim to present a desert future-fest to outshine previous proceedings and “put the UAE at the forefront of aviation.”

However, the wider context of the extreme security crisis around Israel's conflict with Hamas looms large over this week's show given the all-too-real potential for the conflict to spark a wider regional conflagration. The circumstances will undoubtedly be part of the chatter between defense exhibitors and their customers and partners. One cannot overlook the prospect of war undermining post-Covid economic recovery of the air transport sector either.

Saudi Arabia has become the focus of airport development in the Middle East as it seeks to drive income from tourism from 3.8 percent in 2019 to 10 percent of GDP by 2030. Funded by a deep-pocketed sovereign wealth fund, the plan aligns with the kingdom's Saudi Aviation Strategy 2030, launched in 2022 and backed by $100 billion in investments from the government and private sectors, according to a recent paper published by Goldman Sachs.

Aiming to triple the aviation sector’s contribution to the economy to $74.6 billion by 2030, Saudi Arabia has set key targets to extend connectivity to 250-plus destinations across 29 airports; triple annual passenger traffic to 330 million versus around 100 million carried in 2019; increase air cargo volume to 4.5 million tons (from 0.8 million tons today); and add two global long-haul connecting hubs, the investment bank said. Jeddah and Riyadh stand in pole position to serve as such axes.

The Middle East continues to generate growth for CFM International’s Leap engines, accounting for almost 400 of the company’s backlog of 10,000-plus units. The pending deliveries in the region have prompted the opening of Sanad’s new maintenance, repair, and overhaul center for the turbofans, which the company inaugurated in Abu Dhabi on Thursday.

The facility became the first Leap support center specifically tasked with supporting operators across a vast territory spanning the Middle East and North Africa, as well as South Asia. It will fulfill services covered by the 11-year shop visit offload agreement signed during the Paris Air Show in June with CFM parent companies GE Aviation and Safran. Abu Dhabi’s sovereign wealth investment group Mubadala owns Sanad.

The Middle East airliner fleet will more than double by 2042 with the delivery of 3,025 new jets, according to the latest commercial market outlook (CMO) published by Boeing on Sunday. The airframer predicts that new widebody models, like the 777-9 it is displaying at the Dubai Airshow this week, will account for almost 1,350 of those sales, along with 1,570 narrowbodies, some 70 purpose-built freighters, and just 35 regional jets.

In a pre-show press briefing, Darren Hulst, Boeing’s vice president for commercial marketing, reported that Middle East scheduled carriers have mostly bounced back from Covid disruption to the air transportation market. As of September 2023, single-aisle capacity reached 24 percent above where it stood in September 2019, while widebody capacity lagged by 6 percent.

Even by the standards of the precocious advanced air mobility (AAM) sector, Saudi Arabia’s Neom project looks pretty “out-there.” With deep-pocketed government backing, the idea calls for the development of a vast new urban conurbation in the northwest of the kingdom where the desert meets the Red Sea, including an “industrial city” called Oxagon and a residential community called The Line that will extend for just over 100 miles and house a population of 1 million people.

Adding to the futuristic theme, developers say Saudi Arabia’s fossil fuel wealth will allow Neom to be powered entirely from renewable energy sources, with “zero cars, zero streets, and zero carbon emissions.” In place of ground vehicles, people and things would move around in new eVTOL aircraft now in development with an anticipated rage of between 20 and 150 miles.