It's 1987. Emirates Airline has just bought its first Airbus A310 and two shoppers at Dubai International Airport are engrossed, if not exactly spoilt for choice.
What to take home to remember time well spent in the UAE? A gleaming brass coffee pot or … a gleaming brass coffee pot?
Fast-forward some 25 years and the retail experience at Dubai’s much-expanded airport has become more varied and sophisticated just as Dubai’s market share of air traffic has grown.
It’s now one of the 10 busiest airports in the world with a duty-free business that was worth US$1.6 billion (Dh5.9bn) last year, selling everything from gold to golf clubs.
More gleaming still, Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai World Central is set to open at the end of this month with a passenger terminal that could eventually say hello or goodbye to an extraordinary 200 million passengers (and shoppers) a year.
* Clare Dight
