Dubai // Snakes on a plane, kilos of heroin stitched into the lining of luggage, a flight that jettisoned Dh1 million worth of fuel before making an emergency landing – they are all in a day’s work at one of the world’s largest transport hubs.
Now they are captured in National Geographic’s second season of Ultimate Airport Dubai. The television series covers the day-to-day lives of the 90,000 staff who make up the workforce at Dubai International Airport – code name DXB.
Picture Gallery: Go inside Ultimate Airport Dubai here
Ed Sayer, vice president of commissioning at National Geographic, said the airport makes for a unique shooting experience because of the access Dubai Airports has given his crew.
“It says a lot for a big organisation to let you in and kind of wear its heart on its sleeve and say ‘sometimes things don’t go smoothly but we’re prepared to let you see it’.”
One of the difficulties, he said, was keeping up with the 2.4 million tonnes of cargo and 180,000 passengers that go through DXB every day.
To maximise coverage, National Geographic deploys up to five crews at the airport.
The crews have shot more than 100 days worth of footage, documenting everything from loading multimillion-dollar cars into cargo holds with only centimetres of leeway, to finding missing children among thousands of passengers.
The series focuses on certain high-profile employees in DXB as they deal with their daily tasks.
“The other thing that is really appealing in Dubai is the people who work in it,” Mr Sayer said. “The success of any series is the characters that the viewer can spend time with.”
One such character is Mel Sabharwal, Emirates airline’s manager of airport services, who handles all sorts of issues, from smuggled animals to missing passengers.
“It was difficult being on camera while on the job,” she said. “Nothing is scripted, nothing is planned. We’re just going with the flow. So if there is something that’s kicking off at 6am, we don’t know what the outcome is going to be.” Ms Sabharwal, who has worked at the airport for 10 years, said the series shows how the staff are constantly trying to achieve the best possible outcome.
She demonstrates this ideal as she tackles issues throughout the series.
Georg Broemmer is vice president of network control, or what staff call the heart of the airport. He said the show displays the intricacy of what it means to work in the business of being on time.
“It’s a funny thing,” he said. “Most people never notice when they are on time. The second you’re late, then that’s when they’ll say something.”
Mr Broemmer said that many passengers underestimate the complexity of getting a plane to take off on schedule, noting that one delay – caused by passengers being off-boarded or weather – can cause ripples in the scheduling for the rest of the day.
“That’s why the Nat Geo is so good, because of human intervention,” said Mr Broemmer, who has worked at the airport for 12 years.
“There is a tendency to oversimplify the operation of an airport, but this way we want people to see the technical intricacies,” he said “That way, next time someone runs into a delay at the airport maybe they can remember the people on the show who are working on it.”
nalwasmi@thenational.ae
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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Nepotism is the name of the game
Salman Khan’s father, Salim Khan, is one of Bollywood’s most legendary screenwriters. Through his partnership with co-writer Javed Akhtar, Salim is credited with having paved the path for the Indian film industry’s blockbuster format in the 1970s. Something his son now rules the roost of. More importantly, the Salim-Javed duo also created the persona of the “angry young man” for Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan in the 1970s, reflecting the angst of the average Indian. In choosing to be the ordinary man’s “hero” as opposed to a thespian in new Bollywood, Salman Khan remains tightly linked to his father’s oeuvre. Thanks dad.
Watch live
The National will broadcast live from the IMF on Friday October 13 at 7pm UAE time (3pm GMT) as our Editor-in-Chief Mina Al-Oraibi moderates a panel on how technology can help growth in MENA.
You can find out more here
Europe’s rearming plan
- Suspend strict budget rules to allow member countries to step up defence spending
- Create new "instrument" providing €150 billion of loans to member countries for defence investment
- Use the existing EU budget to direct more funds towards defence-related investment
- Engage the bloc's European Investment Bank to drop limits on lending to defence firms
- Create a savings and investments union to help companies access capital
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