Passenger traffic at the world's busiest airport was up more than 2 per cent in the first six months of the year, boosted by strong growth in Middle East travellers.
The number of people passing through Heathrow Airport in the United Kingdom rose by 2.4 per cent to 34.4 million in the first half of the year. The number of Middle East passengers outpaced the overall growth at 4 per cent to 2.8 million people, a figure outdone only by European traffic, which rose by 4.9 per cent to 14.3 million.
"Middle East traffic increased strongly, up 4 per cent to 2.8 million passengers with larger aircraft and passenger growth from Emirates, Etihad and Saudi Airlines," said the airport's half-yearly report.
Dubai International Airport, which was the world's 99th busiest hub 12 years ago, is now second, having overtaken Paris-Charles de Gaulle in March. In the first four months of the year it handled 21.9 million passengers, according to official figures.
The rise in passenger numbers will be welcomed by the owners of Heathrow airport as a fierce debate over its future continues to make headlines in the UK. The London mayor Boris Johnson had advocated developing a new airport on the Thames Estuary that has been dubbed "Boris Island" and has been more recently linked to a second site on the Isle of Grain.
Last year, more than 57.6 million passengers travelled through Dubai's airport, compared with Heathrow's tally of almost 70 million.
But Dubai airport is expected to leapfrog Heathrow by 2015, handling 75 million passengers, according to the emirate's civil aviation strategy plan.
The airport is undergoing a US$7.8 billion expansion to raise its capacity to about 100 million passengers by 2020. However, the figure will be dwarfed by the capacity of Dubai's new airport located near Jebel Ali, Al Maktoum International, which is expected to be able to handle 200 million passengers eventually.
By comparison, Heathrow wants to build a third runway, which would increase the airport's capacity to 130 million passengers a year.
One area where Dubai is already substantially outstripping Heathrow is in duty free sales.
In the first six months of the year, Heathrow's duty and tax free sales stood at £58million (Dh326.7m), an increase of 3.6 per cent.
However, Dubai Duty Free registered a 13 per cent rise in sales in the first six months to reach Dh3.2 billion, about 10 times as much as Heathrow.
gduncan@thenational.ae
The Perfect Couple
Starring: Nicole Kidman, Liev Schreiber, Jack Reynor
Creator: Jenna Lamia
Rating: 3/5
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Honeymoonish
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Elie%20El%20Samaan%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarring%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENour%20Al%20Ghandour%2C%20Mahmoud%20Boushahri%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%203%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Sam Smith
Where: du Arena, Abu Dhabi
When: Saturday November 24
Rating: 4/5
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
What it means to be a conservationist
Who is Enric Sala?
Enric Sala is an expert on marine conservation and is currently the National Geographic Society's Explorer-in-Residence. His love of the sea started with his childhood in Spain, inspired by the example of the legendary diver Jacques Cousteau. He has been a university professor of Oceanography in the US, as well as working at the Spanish National Council for Scientific Research and is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Biodiversity and the Bio-Economy. He has dedicated his life to protecting life in the oceans. Enric describes himself as a flexitarian who only eats meat occasionally.
What is biodiversity?
According to the United Nations Environment Programme, all life on earth – including in its forests and oceans – forms a “rich tapestry of interconnecting and interdependent forces”. Biodiversity on earth today is the product of four billion years of evolution and consists of many millions of distinct biological species. The term ‘biodiversity’ is relatively new, popularised since the 1980s and coinciding with an understanding of the growing threats to the natural world including habitat loss, pollution and climate change. The loss of biodiversity itself is dangerous because it contributes to clean, consistent water flows, food security, protection from floods and storms and a stable climate. The natural world can be an ally in combating global climate change but to do so it must be protected. Nations are working to achieve this, including setting targets to be reached by 2020 for the protection of the natural state of 17 per cent of the land and 10 per cent of the oceans. However, these are well short of what is needed, according to experts, with half the land needed to be in a natural state to help avert disaster.
About Housecall
Date started: July 2020
Founders: Omar and Humaid Alzaabi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: HealthTech
# of staff: 10
Funding to date: Self-funded
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Marwan Lutfi says the core fundamentals that drive better payment behaviour and can improve your credit score are:
1. Make sure you make your payments on time;
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3. Don't max out all your debts: how much you maximise those credit facilities will have an impact. If you have five credit cards and utilise 90 per cent of that credit, it will negatively affect your score.
