A year on from the grounding of flights – from waving goodbye to an expected ‘Mexican Wave’ of demand

A year on from the grounding of flights – from waving goodbye to an expected ‘Mexican Wave’ of demand

Dubai International Airport was heading down the runway towards another record year in the first quarter of 2020, with the opening three months witnessing some 17.8 million passengers passing through the international hub.

Despite geopolitical tensions between Iran and the US, fluctuating oil prices and Australian bush fires, travel was continuing relatively as normal - the taxi ranks were full, check-in desks busy and bustling, duty free tills ringing off the hook and flights departing and arriving on a minute-by-minute basis.

However, there was turbulence on the horizon in the shape of a deadly virus that had been afflicting the Chinese city of Wuhan since December 2019, and was gradually moving across the globe.

Etihad airways expects strong demand back by second half of 2021, full recovery by 2024

That was soon to send the world, and in this case the aviation industry, into complete freefall as countries literally shut down, borders were closed by many nations and, in terms of Dubai and the wider UAE, its airports fell almost into complete silence.

On March 25, 2020, the simple act of flying, the journey through an airport to a departure lounge and showing your passport before jumping on an airplane, had completed its final journey.

“Aviation,