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2014-10-08
MEBAA – sky’s the limit
UAE develops strong business aviation infrastructure
By: Sakha Pramod
In a short time MEBAA - Middle East & North Africa Business Aviation Association has brought together a large number of companies in the business aviation sector in the region. The association is currently heading efforts to introduce a code of conduct and a set of rules and regulations for players in the industry, to help bring some order to this flourishing field. In an exclusive interview ALI AHMED AL NAQBI, Founding Chairman, MEBAA shares the chief concerns of the industry with Nation Shield Journal.
A key objective of MEBAA is communicating the concerns of Middle East business aviation operators and suppliers to governments? How successful have you been in this?
MEBAA was founded in 2006 as I realized that a lot of companies were coming to the Middle East and North Africa (especially UAE and Saudi Arabia), to start-up business aviation organizations, but people here really did not understand the concept of business aviation - they considered private aircraft only for the use of the super rich. We wanted to create a body to raise awareness and educate the Middle East and North Africa on what it was all about - especially since such bodies did not exist back then.
When I launched Royal Jet in 2003, there was a lot of misunderstanding about the industry. Business aviation is an effective tool to raise productivity of companies. So far MEBAA has achieved many milestones, within five months of our inception we became an international association by obtaining the membership of the International Business Aviation Council (IBAC). The authorities in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and all of Middle East and North Africa use us as a vehicle to send a message to the operators. We were able to raise the awareness of the importance of business aviation, thereby promoting the economy in different sectors. We managed to change the misconception that business aviation was only for luxury. We started with six members and now we have over 225 members who not only reside in the Middle East and North Africa but from all over the world. However, we still have many more things to achieve.
What are the key factors that drive the Middle East and North Africa business aviation?
There are many factors that drive growth in the Middle East business aviation sector; the UAE government has invested a lot of money to have a very strong infrastructure. In other countries in the region, you would need up to five months to start up a company - here you can easily start a company within one or two weeks. We offer many options for an investor, he can have a local partner or he can start his own company in the free zone. So many companies have started moving their projects here, even in the oil sector, from different parts of the world, which helps us by increasing the amount of aircraft in the region plus other activities. The Middle East and North Africa is very stable compared to other parts of the world, this sector has movable assets, the airplanes, which you can move easily from one area to another. Moreover, here we don’t have taxation issues - all these prompt a lot of companies to come to our region.
Safety has been one of your prime concerns? How far have you been able to further this objective so far?
Safety is always a priority and this is one of the reasons that MEBAA was founded. We combined our efforts with the Civil Aviation authority in the Middle East and North Africa and we now, work with all the 24 member countries to promote safety. This is one of our main criteria when we accept a company to be a member with us - they must meet our criteria for safety. This in turn, helps the civil aviation authorities by ensuring that our members have a high standard of safety.
Your membership has steadily increased over the years. What do the members gain from MEBAA?
Our increasing membership is a clear indication of the trust that the operators and companies are putting on MEBAA. We are the official representatives of the members in front of the government, the media and the international community. MEBAA takes their issues to the authorities, in theory we act as their voice in the region. Unlike an individual operator, MEBAA with 225 members has a stronger collective voice, and the authorities listen to us and solve the problems quickly. Recently we launched an aviation insurance scheme for our members called MAIS, with many more projects scheduled to be launched in the near future, including fuelling, spare parts and maintenance schemes all for the benefit of our MEBAA members.
How far have you succeeded in forging and promoting partnerships in the Middle East & North Africa in the aviation and aerospace sector?
MEBAA hosts a business aviation show every two years called MEBA, I believe MEBA brings the Far East, the West, the North and the South together under one roof, here in Dubai, with the next edition taking place in December at our new home – Dubai World Central (DWC). There are a lot of big companies which would like to invest in the UAE and we introduce them to reliable partners at the show, resulting in many companies opening branches here. So today, we are trying to open up the North African market in places like Morocco - it’s a very important link between the Middle East and Europe and we have successfully brought a lot of big companies to invest there.
What are your other upcoming events and projects?
MEBAA will be hosting a lot of events over the next 6 months. MEBAA is confronting a time of many changes and will continue to meet and bring inspired and motivated people together in our events; to ensure the business aviation community remains at the forefront of this ever changing industry. This upcoming September we will go to Amman, Jordan for our next edition of the MEBAA conference and we are planning to hold conferences in Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Morocco, and probably Egypt in 2015.
The sixth running of the biennial event - MEBA will take place at our new home (the Dubai Airshow venue) in Dubai World Central (DWC), 8-10 December 2014.
During MEBA we will be holding a ‘General Assembly’ for the association, along with a first time conference ‘Business Around the World’ and the Commercial Wing Club. IBAC (International Business Aviation Council) will also, be holding their annual meeting for the second time here, in Dubai during the MEBA show.
In terms of projects, we are also drafting the policies and procedures for the Middle East and North Africa.
How does your data bank help the MEBAA Members and other interested parties?
One problem we face is the lack of statistics, data and information. The nature of the Middle East and North African Arabs here is not to share information and that has really reflected on the companies which want to do business here. Though we assure them that the data will be used in a confidential basis only to promote them and to make their markets bigger, the culture prevails and they are refusing to share information.
What we require are the number of departures and arrivals in and out of the UAE, how many flying hours, how many aircrafts based here and so on. There are 134 business aircraft registered in UAE, with 500 aircraft for business aviation based in UAE, but registered somewhere else. About 160 aircraft are registered in Saudi Arabia but there are more than 700 operating there yet registered elsewhere. So we do not have this data which will help promote the business aviation market in UAE and worldwide. Today, the statistics about the Middle East and North Africa have come from Europe and the United States, there is resistance to share information but now we are trying to collect the data indirectly.
We are going to kick start a project at the MEBA show to draft regulations as in Europe and US so that we can ask the companies to register here. Between the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, we represent 70 per cent of the business aviation market in the Middle East and North Africa. So we can start with this, hoping the rest will follow.
You have formulated codes of conduct amongst MEBAA Members, handlers, agents and other business aviation operators throughout the region. While this is a very good idea, how has the industry welcomed it?
Today if you don’t have the code of conduct between the operators, what you end up doing is destroying your own market with your own hands. They break down the price, poach employees from rival companies. While it is very important to evolve a code of conduct, we found it is also very difficult to maintain. There are the issues of transparency and of people trying to grab the business from you, plus companies slash prices to grab the market. We are tackling it in a very slow manner, because unless we evolve the rules very carefully, they can go wrong..
There is also a grey market we are fighting where privately owned aircraft are put to commercial use which is illegal. It is also risky for the passenger as there is no insurance cover. In Europe there are strict rules to prevent such misuse - such operators will damage your markets.
You have big names in aviation on your board like Bombardier, Airbus, Saudia. Has the meeting of these minds benefited the sector?
Indeed. The fact that MEBAA can bring all these competitors together around one table discussing important issues pertaining to our market is not only beneficial to the association but also the industry. These CEOs represent various fields like airlines, manufacturing, maintenance etc and their discussions and decisions benefit the market greatly. We have a very strong Board and that is the reason why MEBAA is growing rapidly. When competitors sit around a table for the board meeting, their interest is nothing but promoting the business aviation market, I assume we are the first association to have such diversity around one table. As many as 16 companies are on the Board, not to promote their own projects, but to promote the interests of business aviation in the Middle East and North Africa.
Personnel shortage is billed as one of the issues the aviation sector is facing. How does MEBAA tackle this?
We tackle it from different angles; we realize that business aviation will very soon face shortages of manpower and this year at the MEBA show, we will host an educational day to familiarize aviation students with this sector. Last year, we launched a new membership category to admit universities and colleges as members of MEBAA. Although we have companies flying for 50 years, compared to other industries such as the oil and agriculture, we are really a new industry, so we are working hard to attract new talent to meet the shortage. The aviation sector needs not only pilots and engineers but also traffic controllers, operators, radar operators, air tower operators and more.
You have been working on a regional business aviation policy. Have you been able to give a final shape to it?
As I said, the Middle East and North Africa market is still lacking the rules and regulations for business aviation. Safety is the number one issue. Civil aviation rules do not apply to business aviation as we fly different. We take passengers to an airport or to a city where the airlines cannot reach, so you cannot apply the same rules, the same flight time limitations, on airlines doing business aviation. As we launch the project to evolve a policy at MEBAA, we take an important step to introduce rules and regulations in this important sector•
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