The Dubai Air Show opened Sunday amidst expectations of building up aircraft orderbooks, acrobatics above the desert, and a Gala Closing Dinner on Palm Island starring Katy Perry.
   The five-day event (November 8-12) always sells lots of aircraft (both commercial and military) and opens a portal for Dubai to showcase itself.
   Expansive, warm, and sunny, Dubai seems to have bypassed most other air shows, including Paris Le Bourget.
Officials say that the 2015 edition of the Dubai Air Show includes 1,100 exhibitors, with more than 65,000 visitors, amounting in a larger event than the last show in 2013.
   Interestingly, Emirates SkyCargo is holding a press conference at Al Maktoum International Airport (DWC) on Tuesday, November 10, to formally introduce its move back to the airport in 2014.
   Airbus, which has not landed a single order for its giant A380 in two years, must be looking longingly at DWC as part of whatever future A380 might have.
   Emirates is the A380’s biggest customer, but as Dubai becomes more crowded it has yet to set a date to move passenger flights to DWC. EK has indicated that a future version of A380neo could be of interest.
   DWC would have the room and capacity to handle hoards of the new aircraft but Airbus needs to spend $2 billion plus development costs, which, without an order, seems unlikely.
   The Dubai Air Show also includes an interesting series of conferences on various aviation subjects, including an “Offsets Conference.”
   The sessions are running concurrently or have been conducted during the months leading up to this week’s event.
   But all of the sales and big thinking and business aside, take a minute for a blast-from-the-past from 2013 (and what makes the world go around for some of us) and get ready for fun in the sun in 2015!
Geoffrey