Innovation for future airports

Prominent aviation industry players from Saudi Arabia will participate at the 19th Airport Show from April 29-May 1 at Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre (DICEC). Daniyal Qureshi, Group Exhibition Director, Reed Exhibitions, shares the country’s ongoing efforts to develop airport facilities.

TT Bureau

Could you share an overview of this year’s Airport Show?
The Airport Show 2019 will have two co-located events — Air Traffic Control (ATC) Forum and Airport Security Middle East, as well as the Global Airport Leaders Forum (GALF), Women in Aviation (WIA) General Assembly CAPA’s Middle East & Africa Aviation Summit. A new Smart Airports Conference will take place during GALF and the new Innovation Hub will be showcasing breakthrough technologies set to shape the future airport experience. Then there is a dedicated ‘Live Stage’ featuring CPD accredited industry presentations for all visitors for free. The ATC Forum is important as the fleet of passenger and freighter aircraft in the Middle East region will almost treble to over 2,950 by 2034. The Airport Security Market is projected to hit US$16 billion by 2024.

How many exhibitors are participating this year?
We will have a record 375 exhibitors from 60 countries this year. 7,500 attendees are expected to attend the B2B show, with 75 per cent exhibitors returning after the highlysuccessful participation last year. The 19th year of Airport Show will see 143 international companies, of which 42 are new exhibitors. Leading exhibitors at the event will include Ulma Handling Systems, ADB Safegate, Honeywell, L3 Security, Smiths Detection, DFS Aviation and Vanderlande.

How different is this year’s edition from the last?
Our tag line this year is ‘The Future of Airport Innovation Starts Here’. We are accelerating business and innovation for the future airports. This year the focus is on smart airports, along with ATC and Airport Security. The global smart airport market is expected to reach close to US$13 billion by 2019 and US$14.87 billion by 2021. In the Middle East, the smart airports market will be worth US$850 million by 2019. Airports in the UAE lead in smart technology adoption.

What has been the reason to advance the Airport Show date this year?
It is taking place a day after the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) starts this year and also almost a week before the Holy Month of Ramadan begins. This has been done keeping in view the sentiments of our industry members some of whom participate in ATM too, especially overseas exhibitors.