New Virgin Atlantic regional chief says Dubai remains key destination

Nick Parker lays out his views on a regional aviation market more used to giant Airbus A380s than propeller planes.

The Middle East region has a clear vision to expand tourism, according to Nick Parker. Sarah Dea / The National

The Caribbean and Middle East aviation markets could not be more different – but Nick Parker knows them both better than most.

The executive is based in New Delhi as Virgin Atlantic’s head of India and the Middle East, having relocated in October from Barbados where he served as the airline’s regional manager for the Caribbean.

Here, in his first interview with the UAE media since relocating, Mr Parker lays out his views on a regional aviation market more used to giant Airbus A380s than propeller planes.

How does the Middle East market differ from the Caribbean?

I was very fortunate to experience the Caribbean for five years. Clearly they are very different markets. The Middle East seems to be dominated by A380s, whereas in the Caribbean the regional carrier there is flying [small planes like] ATRs and Dash 8s. In the Middle East I think there’s a clear vision in terms of what the strategy is to grow tourism, to be an important hub. And they’ve obviously got the finance available to turn those visions into reality. Whereas in the Caribbean, the economies are a lot smaller, and clearly from a resource and funding point of view it can be challenging.

Does Virgin Atlantic need A380s to compete with the likes of Emirates Airline?

We don’t need to fly an A380 to compete there. What we’re focused on is competing on the product and service. We’ve got a fantastic cabin crew, great ground staff. It’s all about making sure that people have a wonderful experience with us. Obviously the benefit of flying a smaller aircraft is you can have that more personalised experience and interaction with people. You can do that really effectively, you don’t need to be flying an A380 around.

Sir Richard Branson said last year the airline could boost capacity on the Dubai route. Is that still on the agenda?

Dubai and the other routes in our international network are all really important to us, but it’s making sure that we are deploying the available capacity that we’ve got on the routes where we will get the best returns. So, obviously, we’ll always be looking at Dubai and deciding when to put something extra in there. But at the moment there’s not any immediate or short-term plans on that.

Has Virgin “missed the boat” in the Arabian Gulf?

No not necessarily. In the GCC region we can always look at other route opportunities. But it’s making sure that we have the right network for our business. We will evaluate further opportunities as they come up.

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