Our Partners In Success 
How Dubai conquered the skies.
In 1959, Dubai was just a small dot on the world map.
When the Ruler at the time, Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, wanted to construct
an airport, all he had at his disposal was a grand vision and steely determination. He
dreamed of connecting Dubai to the world, and so tackling the political and economic
challenges head on, the visionary leader borrowed a few thousand Rupees and opened a
200-passengers-a-day airport that only operated between 7 am and 1 pm. What happened
afterwards changed the aviation world.
The journey he undertook was a destined continuation from Dubai’s first foray
into the skies – the landing of the first commercial flight, a flying boat, in Dubai Creek
in October 1937. Sheikh Rashid even had plans on paper to launch an airline for Dubai
way back in 1962, as the scale at which airlines operated at Dubai’s airport at that time
was not suitable to his ambitions. That dream did not materialise for more than two
decades, but, in the long run, the head start and solid foundation that Sheikh Rashid
provided to Dubai’s aviation industry proved vitally important.
Sheikh Rashid’s son, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum,
Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, picked up right
where his father left off. Taking Dubai’s aspirations to a totally new level, Sheikh
Mohammed created global aviation industry icons like Dubai Airports, Emirates
Airline, and Dubai Duty Free, not to mention the mammoth project of Dubai World
Central and the new Al Maktoum International Airport in Jebel Ali.
Today, Dubai International is the world’s fourth busiest airport for international
travel, and freight and annual traffic is projected to rise to 98.5 million passengers by
2020, an amazing achievement for a city built on dreams and hard work.
This book’s uniqueness lies in its candid interviews with more than 50 entrepreneurs
and industry pioneers who not only witnessed this success story first-hand over the
decades, but were very much a part of it, and the insights that the author has offered
about various aspects of society, politics, the economy, and particularly the aviation
sector in Dubai since the early 19th century are unrivalled in any other publication.
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