The Arab East: Civil Aviation in the Light of Modern Challenges

Abstract

The article analyzes the features of the development of civil aviation in the Arab East with an emphasis on the beginning of the current century, as the most important period in the life of the Arab nations, on the one hand the time when they suffered huge losses as a result of the global financial crisis, the drama of the Arab Spring, the wars on terrorism, the pandemic and other circumstances, and on the other — t he time when they managed to accumulate colossal oil revenues, which were invested in economic construction and especially in infrastructure, including its aviation part. The article is built around a description of the contrasts between Arabian oil exporters and the Arab outsiders, whose difference in growth potentials is exacerbated by the pitfalls and traps of the so-called catch-up development. This model a priori puts weak facilities at a disadvantage, since less wealthy countries experience the greatest difficulties in overcoming problems and challenges across the entire range of socio-economic development topics compared to those that form the basis of infrastructure construction, including the aviation services industry. The article emphasizes that the reduction of the gap in terms of the maturity of transport and logistics connectivity in the region, along with other advances and developments in the field of transport arrangement of the Middle East and North African economic space, could potentially in the future create conditions for a more representative presence of the Arab nations in the system of world economic ties, and at the shorter-range stages of growth it will more fully ensure the current and ongoing tasks and objectives of regional intersectoral and intra-economic connectivity in the interests of integration.

Keywords

• airline
• fleet
• air routes
• air services infrastructure
• airport facilities
• modernization
• competition
• market