It has been a wild few weeks in the Middle East, when the United States and Israel launched an attack on Iran, which took away some high-ranking Iranian officials. In response, Iran launched drone attacks on neighboring countries, including targeting airports, hotels and more.
Weeks later, this conflict is not over, and one wonders how much longer it will last. There’s no denying that people are suddenly looking at aviation in the Gulf region differently, and I’d like to talk a little bit about that in this post…
Could this conflict be a turning point for Gulf carriers?
Let me start by acknowledging that there are certainly significant environmental implications of what we’ve seen over the past few weeks, and that goes beyond the airline industry. However, this blog is about travel, so that’s what I like to focus on, while I believe there are many ways this could evolve.
Airlines such as Emirates, Etihad, Qatar, etc., have all become “standard” over the years, and many travelers choose to fly with airlines when traveling between destinations. So whether it’s Australians looking to travel to the UK, or Europeans looking to holiday in South East Asia, airlines like Emirates have become a major competitor in those markets, going head-to-head with “local” carriers.
Places such as Dubai, and airlines such as Emirates, have enjoyed a high level of success due to the incredible security inside the country for travelers (both real and perceived). While the Middle East is a region that has seen its fair share of conflict over time, places like the UAE thrive on not watching the drama, even if it’s close to home.
So to see the Dubai Airport sustained damage, and to see a fire in a hotel like the Burj Al Arab caused by an Iranian plane attack, is certainly not a good thing for tourism in this country. Now, let me say that I personally would still feel comfortable traveling to Dubai, etc. Even though we’re seeing very bad pictures, the death toll seems to be very low, and that’s where I try to be rational.
The UAE offers incredible safety in many areas for travelers, and here in the United States we have our own dangers that we try to ignore (like gun violence). As I see it (at least as of now), places like the UAE may have more of an optics problem than anything else.
Will these attacks change consumer behavior going forward?
In a short period of time, we have seen all the major Gulf cameras change their performance significantly. In short, we’ve seen airlines go out of business, and we’ve seen them operate at reduced times. The issue is that we have seen many stoppages of operations now, which can cause long delays at airports, profits, etc.
To me all this raises an interesting question. If things do eventually return to normal (or at least a new kind of normal), what will this look like for Gulf carriers? Historically, people have gone out of their way to fly with Gulf carriers because of the great service and competitive prices.
And while I think all the hubs in the Gulf are still incredibly safe, I don’t know but I think this situation will change the outlook for places like Dubai at some point. I am by no means suggesting that the majority of potential Emirates customers will leave on principle.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised if a small number of travelers say, “You know, I’ll fly non-stop on a European or Southeast Asian ship, instead of connecting in the Middle East.”
In that case, the traveler can also come to that conclusion in a reasonable way, without thinking about safety directly – if he books a Gulf cruise, he may worry about how reliably he can get to his destination, even if we see more flight closures.
Also, I also believe that nothing really exists. For example, look at all the doom and gloom predictions we saw after the start of the coronavirus pandemic, but the airline industry bounced back well.
So we will see how everything goes. At this point, I suspect that if we don’t see a complete change of government in Iran, the risk of these kinds of attacks will remain, and I think that would cause a large number of people to leave. But we’ll see, who knows…
Gulf carriers have been growing at an impressive pace in recent years, and there’s no denying that demand conditions turning negative could have major long-term implications for these airlines.
I think that for the Gulf airlines, what they are dealing with here is actually the event of the coronavirus situation, in terms of the impact on demand. I could be wrong, but this is my opinion based on the fact that there is no clear end to this military operation.
Low profile
It’s been a very bad couple of weeks in the Middle East, when Iran was attacked, and responded by sending drones wherever they could. On the flight front, this has caused many Gulf carriers to suspend flights for some time, and change their schedules in another direction.
Places like Dubai have thrived on an image of incredible safety. And although I think that nothing has changed, these attacks – and the images of the airport and hotels destroyed – are not good at all. I have to imagine that this could be a difficult time for the Gulf carriers, especially since some people may avoid booking in the future due to increased awareness of operational issues.
How do you see the recovery of Gulf traffic playing into all this?
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