Mebaa Chairman Calls for Smaller Aircraft to Drive UAE Business Aviation Growth

Ali Alnaqbi, Executive Chairman of Mebaa, said at a media briefing that the UAE business aviation sector remains too focused on larger aircraft, which limits its ability to serve shorter regional business trips. He said the industry continues to compete against wide-body commercial fleets offering first- and business-class seats.

Alnaqbi noted that in markets such as the US and Europe, charter flights cost a fraction of the price of premium commercial seats, while regional clients frequently choose business-class seats on wide-body aircraft instead, based on cost comparisons. "I've been calling for the last 10 years to create a small aircraft company, what you call air taxi," Alnaqbi said, adding that even a single operator providing smaller aircraft would support the UAE's business aviation ambitions. He also described the UAE as a benchmark market that other countries look to as a reference point for business aviation.

Mebaa is a non-profit association representing the business aviation sector in the Middle East region. Its biennial Mebaa Show is scheduled for December 8-10 at the Dubai World Central Dubai Airshow site. On the subject of international airlines that have continued to suspend flights to the region, Alnaqbi said the Mebaa Show would send the "right message to everybody," and characterised the suspension decisions as "political" and "unjustified," saying he saw no operational reason for the continued suspensions after 35 years in aviation.

Alnaqbi's comments point to a structural gap in the regional market: business aviation in the UAE has scaled around larger, longer-range aircraft, leaving shorter regional trips to compete on price against business-class seats on wide-body airliners rather than against a dedicated smaller-aircraft or air taxi segment. That dynamic mirrors how charter economics work elsewhere, where smaller aircraft undercut premium commercial fares on shorter sectors, a comparison Alnaqbi drew directly from the US and European markets.

Whether that gap closes depends on whether an operator steps forward to launch the smaller-aircraft or air taxi service Alnaqbi has been requesting for a decade, since he stated even one such operator would meaningfully support the UAE's ambitions in the segment. The Mebaa Show in December will be a venue where any such commitments, or continued absence of them, become visible to the wider industry that Alnaqbi says already treats the UAE as a benchmark market.