Dubai Air Show 2021: Here’s what to expect

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Dubai’s last international air show, in November of 2019, feels like another era.

Just a few months before the Covid-19 pandemic turned travel upside down, the highly-attended biennial aviation event celebrated an industry that looks very different today. 

But nearly two years after the travel and airline industries came to a near standstill, the market is picking up again.    

The 2021 Dubai Air Show kicks off on Sunday, November 14. Here’s what to expect:

Things have been looking up for travel with the continued successful rollout of vaccination campaigns and easing of governments’ Covid restrictions. 

“Executives are cautiously optimistic about the future,” aviation analysts at consultancy Accenture wrote in a note ahead of the show.

The firm predicts 13% growth year-on-year in 2022 for commercial aerospace globally, though the year will still be 4% below 2019 levels. 

Dubai flagship carrier Emirates Airline — the Middle East’s largest airline and biggest aircraft buyer — has enjoyed some of that recovery itself, narrowing its previous losses with a 86% surge in revenue for its half-year earnings for the 2021-2022 financial year.  

Still, worries about potential new Covid variants, inflation and rising energy prices leave a significant amount of uncertainty for the industry. Dubai’s show is sure to see plenty of discussions on industry recovery, as well as ways that aviation has become safer and more hygienic due to the pandemic. 

Due in part to that uncertainty and also because Dubai hosts a smaller air show than the Paris or Farnborough events, analysts don’t expect to see many major orders this year. It’s also because the order books for Gulf carriers “tend to be more widebody focused,” said Sheila Kahyaoglu, aerospace and defense analyst at Jefferies. “So I think that given international traffic is slower, I just don’t think that will be a catalyst for more orders.”

The global supply chain crunch has impacted many sectors, and aerospace has been no exception.

Within aviation, supply chain shortages are mostly hitting the defense space, Kahyaoglu said. “In communications systems, ships, semiconductor parts — just wherever it’s hitting the rest of the world.”

In the business jet segment, there is less of an impact as fewer private jets are manufactured per year than other types of aircraft, but it still “creates a bit of a shortage on parts, so OEMs [original equipment manufacturers] have to be cognizant of their material purchases,” Kahyaoglu said.     

More than half of aerospace executives — 55% — “expressed lower confidence in their supply chain timeliness and quality over the next six months,” according to Accenture.

Only one air traffic segment has gone above 2019 levels, and that’s cargo. 

People may have stopped traveling for a long period, but e-commerce and the movement of products has continued to…