Jeevan Bahadur Thapa and Chunna Bahadur Thapa board bus 99, the so-called Airport Express, at Sharjah's Al Jubail bus station. Natives of Pokhara, Nepal, who work in Dubai's Gold Souk area, they are heading to Sharjah airport to meet their brother who's arriving on the 10pm flight from Kathmandu. It's a direct distance of just over 20km, yet it takes Jeevan and Chunna more than three hours to reach their destination on a three-leg bus journey that costs Dh11 (US$3) each. The only other option, a taxi, would have cost up to Dh70 ($19). "Too much money!" says Chunna.
Sharjah International Airport has emerged as the UAE's preferred airport for passengers on a budget. The airport tripled in size during reconstruction, which finished in 2007, but it maintains a certain wildness, especially compared to the gleaming concourses of Dubai International Airport. About 5.3 million passengers passed through Sharjah airport last year, up 22 per cent on the year before (some nine million passed through Abu Dhabi and 37 million through Dubai). It's a safe bet that many of them took a taxi, for as I learnt the hard way, getting there by bus straddles the line between impractical and downright senseless.
In the entry hall, travelling families congregate, stacking luggage trolleys with boxes wrapped in twine. The departures board flashes the names of destinations that, let's just say, aren't all global aviation hubs. Sure, you have the staid Frankfurt, Brussels and Copenhagen listed, but these are slotted in between the likes of Calicut, Cochin, Kathmandu, Khartoum, Krasnodar, Trivandrum and Tashkent. And where else would you expect to catch the next flight to Makhachkala or Mogadishu?
In addition to the airport's flagship airline Air Arabia, the signboard flashes names like African Express Airline, Dagestan Airlines and Uzbekistan Airways. Heading the other direction, visitors entering the UAE are warned by a sign just outside passport control against smuggling blood diamonds. Sharjah was something of a neglected stepchild of regional air terminals until recently. Completed in 1977, the airport boasted an initial capacity of some two million passengers annually. Its three connected domes echo elements of Islamic architecture, but while it may have passed muster in terms of aesthetics, passenger numbers dropped over the years, dipping below a million at the start of this decade.
Traffic began picking up in 2002, rising more than 30 per cent per year on year between 2004 and 2007 as the UAE economy boomed. Underutilised just a few years earlier, the airport was soon bursting at the seams with passengers. Reconstruction began in 2006, with Sharjah Airport Authority having to ask its million-plus passengers to pardon the inconvenience while they rebuilt the terminal around them.
Sheikh Humaid bin Rashid Al Qassimi, the airport's marketing manager and a member of the ruling family of Sharjah, mainly attributes this growth to the emirate's launch of Air Arabia in 2003. The low-fare airline has seen a handful of regional imitators copy its model in recent years, including Dubai's Flydubai, which takes to the skies in June. The airline offers one-way trips to Muscat for Dh65 ($18) and to Kuwait or Bahrain for a nominal one dirham, plus taxes. Growth is sure to slow in light of the softening economy, Sheikh Humaid adds. "Everybody wants to grow, but with the circumstances happening around us, I think to be stable or have slight growth is very good for us," he says. Expansion continues, however, as Dr Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed, the ruler of Sharjah, recently approved plans to build a new runway and terminal building.
Inside the departures hall, A Nazir Ali Khan, an electronics trader from India who has lived on Naif Road in Deira, Dubai, for 23 years, has packed a bag with almonds and digestive biscuits for a family trip to Mumbai. "I'm staying with my family in Dubai and this is very convenient for me," he says. He's been travelling with Air Arabia since flights launched in 2003, sometimes buying his ticket off the web the day before, a tactic that often yields the best fares. A three-day trip to Mumbai starts from Dh657 ($179) if purchased the day before departure.
For him, travel time to the airport is minimal. "If you come from Al Qusais on Emirates Road, it's half an hour." He usually has a friend drop him off rather than take a taxi, and the lack of public transport is a problem for poorer travellers, he adds. "How do you come to Sharjah airport if you have no transport?" There's little doubt that the airport has an idiosyncratic charm. Mai Abaza, a PR professional who works in Dubai, tells the story of her return from umrah via Sharjah. She found herself trapped in the middle of the night inside the glass e-gate box, a facility designed to let you through immigration without physically having your passport stamped. "I scanned my fingerprint and it just froze, like when your computer freezes - but there was no reset button or anything."
She called over the immigration officer, who told her, "The IT department's not here." It was after 1am. "Do I have to wait until tomorrow morning?" Abaza asked. "We can't break it," he replied. "Can I jump out?' she asked. The officer and a colleague eventually placed a chair on the other side of the glass barrier, allowing Abaza to clamber out of captivity. "It does have character, certainly," she adds. "I think they could do with a little bit more training for the people that work there. My friend flew in there with two kids, a six-year-old and a two-year-old. The guy said the computer showed a problem with the two-year-old's residency and he couldn't let her in. He said, 'You and the six-year-old can get through, but I can't let the two-year-old though.' So she had to run around the airport for three hours to get somebody who had some sense to say, 'Hey, she's two'."
Quirks like these are offset by cheap fares. Sometimes they even add to the fun of the journey. But if there's a catch to Air Arabia's low rates, it's getting to your flight on time without adding 50 per cent to the cost of the ticket. Samer Costantini, a frequent traveller who works for a technology company in Dubai, recalls the days when he lived in the Al Nahda area of Sharjah and flew regularly from Sharjah's airport to avoid the rush hour traffic heading towards Dubai's airport, which was almost next to his home. "It used to take me two to three hours to get [to Dubai International Airport] to catch a morning flight, but with Sharjah airport, it was always a guaranteed 10 to 15 minutes taxi ride," he says. "And Sharjah taxi drivers were more willing to take me to Sharjah airport than Dubai's."
But Costantini says he no longer flies out of Sharjah now that he's moved to Dubai. "The time spent commuting to and from Sharjah airport doesn't really justify it," he says. "The cab fare could cost a good fraction of the airline ticket on Air Arabia. I did it once and it was horrific." Oddly, the airport website makes the risible claim that "the taxi fare from Sharjah to Dubai ranges from Dh15 ($4) to Dh25 ($7)". It can be cheaper - and without a taxi, even faster - to travel from Abu Dhabi. An Air Arabia bus makes the two to three-hour run from the capital to Sharjah airport and back six times daily. Available only to those with Air Arabia tickets, the service costs Dh80 ($22) for a round trip. You could also drive your own car, but long-term parking costs Dh120 ($33) for the first 24 hours and Dh90 ($25) for each additional day. That would only be worth it if you are travelling from afar, can't avail yourself of the Air Arabia bus, and have no friends willing to take you or pick you up.
Because I have nothing better to do on a Saturday, I decide to see how long it takes to get from my apartment in Dubai Marina to Sharjah airport. It's a journey that costs around Dh100 ($27) by taxi, but I'm determined to do it using nothing but public buses. I begin waiting at 4.23pm for the X25 which makes the long slog up Jumeirah Beach Road to Al Ghubaiba bus station in Bur Dubai. After 20 minutes, it rolls up and I board, only to face a driver who insists I take the next bus since his is "full". The bus isn't remotely full and in the frailest imitation of Rosa Parks ever witnessed, I refuse to budge. We set off at 4.45pm after the driver finally accepts my two dirham fare. Still standing an hour later, I wish I'd waited for the next bus.
At 5.52pm, we rolled past Al Ghubaiba station. I disembark around the corner and walk back from Shindaga Market, visualising the luggage I might be dragging. Oddly, I noticed another X25 - that would be the bus the driver told me to wait for - pulling directly into Al Ghubaiba station. At 6.09pm, the E306 bus to Sharjah crawls out into snail's-pace Bur Dubai traffic. For more than one hour, the bus inches up the Corniche, barely breaking 15km an hour. As darkness falls, I feel curiously like a tourist, in a strange land far from home. I feel the urge to get out and explore the city's nightlife until I remember that I'm in Sharjah.
At Al Jubail Station, I change again, buying a third ticket, now for Sharjah bus 99, which leaves at 7.35pm and arrives at 8.10pm. I reach the airport three hours and 47 minutes after I started. As though to add insult to injury, the bus actually stops behind a mosque on the roundabout opposite the airport. You have to walk the final 200m. Sheikh Humaid is refreshingly honest when confronted with my tale of woe. "I didn't think of it before, actually," he says. Most passengers, even low-income ones, take taxis to the airport, often cramming as many as six people into a single car, he adds. Buses are something to look into. "About that, I have no answer. But it has to be studied. I think it's especially important with this economy." The straightforward reply belies the crusty charm of Sharjah International Airport. That's a charm that won't wear off with a few extra buses.