This week at the EBACE show the Middle East and North Africa Business Aviation Association (MEBAA) is busily promoting its upcoming events, including the biennial MEBAA Show in Dubai (December 6-8), the new MEBAA Conference Qatar (September 21) and the MEBAA Show Morocco (Sept. 12-13, 2017). The last-mentioned was first held last year in Casablanca but feedback from members has seen the venue changed to Marrakesh, the capital of Morocco, according to MEBAA founding chairman Ali Alnaqbi. Both events are run in partnership with MEBAA by Dubai-based F&E Aerospace.
Speaking to AIN two weeks before EBACE, Alnaqbi had just returned from Morocco and was in bullish mood about the growth of MEBAA as an organization. Now with a secretariat of 10 staff, and several committees, it is organizing more conferences and events to broaden a membership that numbers 247 in 23 countries in the Middle East and North Africa. “I think we have a good staff and we have big plans. We have operations and engineering committees and we are active with IBAC [the International Business Aviation Council] too. Now MEBAA is the fourth largest association as far as IBAC is concerned,” he explained.
An example of new events was the conference MEBAA (Booth I040) held in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, May 1-2. “It went well,” Alnaqbi told AIN. “We had a good number of attendees–more than 140 people. On the first day we had a networking event; our members requested this as they wanted more opportunity to talk. We started at 5 p.m. and more than 100 people came.”
Alnaqbi expressed satisfaction that business aviation is being recognized as a real priority in Saudi Arabia, where the government is now seeking to reduce the economy’s dependence on oil revenue. “I think it’s getting easier to get visas [for overseas visitors] and the government wants us to do some sort of a show eventually, so we are studying that. We already plan to do a conference there every year, either in Jeddah or Riyadh,” he said. “Saudi Arabia is the biggest market in the Middle East and they’re building a lot of infrastructure; we’ve been calling for that for a long time.”
With the main MEBAA Show in December Alnaqbi said, “We are excited about the show and the site is almost booked up.” He added that he expects most of the remaining exhibition stands to be booked during EBACE. “We expect around 10-15 percent growth and around 12 percent more aircraft. There will be a lot of new aircraft and we will try to have more helicopters on site too as that is an important market.”
Tackling Gray Charter
Alongside access to airports, Alnaqbi said that another major issue in the Middle East is tackling gray charter operations. “Sharjah [for example] has stated the doors are open for fighting the gray market.” He added that a representative from the Sharjah government delivered an “outstanding speech” at MEBAA’s Jeddah event calling for governments and the industry to tackle the problem head-on. “They have changed their rules and don’t allow Part 91 at all now,” said Alnaqbi. “Flights must be either private or commercial on an AOC. So there is a lot of improvement coming—also in countries such as Jordan and Moroccoand MEBAA remains committed to fighting illegal flights.”
Still to be finally resolved is how the growing African business aviation community is represented at IBAC. MEBAA has been active in the Arabic-speaking countries of North Africa, while the separate African Business Aviation Association (AfBAA), founded in 2012, has sought to represent the wider continent. Alnaqbi said, that as he understands it, AfBAA has been discussing the region’s representation with IBAC. Meanwhile, MEBAA has its sights set on starting new events in Algeria and Tunisia, and also “has a plan for Egypt."
