Speaking at the Air Freight Asia conference, Michael Proffi tt, CEO of Dubai Logistics City highlights the importance of having the right infrastructure to copewith air freight growth.
“In the current environment, it is very diffi cult to see how there can be many bust scenarios,” he opened. “With expansion in China, India and the Middle East, the whole air freight industry is going through a period of growth. But the key question is do we have the right infrastructure to cope with that growth?”
Not surprisingly, Proffi tt was quick to point to Dubai as the perfect of example of how infrastructure could be used to anticipate and enhance growth. As recently as 1990 it had been a relatively small airport, but it had taken a visionary approach and made heavy investmentsin infrastructure, he said.
“We believe that there is a clear role for a major hub in the Middle East – a Hong Kong- or Singapore-type hub,” he told delegates, predicting that by 2015, Dubai would be handling over 4 million tonnes of air cargo, three million tonnes of it on the national carrier, Emirates.
To meet that need, Dubai had accelerated plans for a new airport, Dubai World Central, and in Dubai Logistics City (DLC), the freight part of that project, was now in the process of creating an integrated logistics hub, bringing together air freight, road freight, sea freight andpossibly in the future rail freight.
“There is a major rail initiative to link the Gulf countries, and this could eventually link into the European system,” he revealed.
DLC also was a Customs zone, declared free of taxes for 50 years by royal decree, and just 10 kilometres away by bonded road from Jebel Ali port, the world’s fi fth largest port which Proffi tt predicted could be handling more traffi cthan Rotterdam by 2015.
“A lot of countries are constrained because they have no room to expand their airports,” he said. “We are very fortunate that this land was dedicated to a new airport 15 to 20 years ago. That is not a criticism of other airports, because if they had foreseen the demand, they would have built what we are building.”
He went on to point out that Dubai World Central was a city and not just an airport, including residential areas, a labour village for airport workers, an exhibition city, a golf resort, aircraft maintenance facilities and a commercial city. He stressed contrary to popular belief all this was not being funded by oil money: “We have to raise money from commercial sources and pay it back,” he said.
In the DLC, 135 companies had already signed up to take space totally 4 million square metres or space, or 2 million square metres of warehousing, and Proffi tt said more major contracts would be announced shortly.
The fi rst cargo handling facility in the zone was under construction and due to be ready early in 2008, with the 4.5 km fi rst runway to follow in the fourth quarter of the year. A passenger terminal aimed at low cost carriers was also planned.
Early cargo users would most likely include sea-air operators, seeking to benefi t from the airport’s proximity to Jebel Ali, Profi tt suggested. “The idea will be initially to take pressure off the current airport,” he stressed. “The two airports will not compete but will complement each other, and will soon be brought together into one airport company.”
– Peter Conway