Aviation in the UAE

Here in the United Arab Emirates I work as an aviation contractor. It’s exciting because of the policies of the country, which include making the UAE a major aviation and commercial hub bridging Asia and Oceania with the Western World. They have been very successful with the two major carriers here, Emirates and Etihad, ranked very highly by passengers and aviation professionals. To top[ it off, they are both profitable.

These two airlines have become major players in the aviation world, with Emirates, owned by the Emirate of Dubai, being one of the first customers for the Airbus A380 super jumbo jet. They also are a major operator of the Boeing 777. In 2013 Emirates was voted Airline of the Year by the airline rating company Skytrax.

Etihad Airways also frequently wins those major airline service awards and boasts a large fleet of Airbus and Boeing aircraft. Etihad is supposedly the fastest growing airline in history and is the flag carrier of the UAE, owned by the Abu Dhabi government. Both airlines are listed as two of the top ten in the world in size and in a number of other categories.

Additionally, the UAE’s air forces are also fascinating in their relative size, diversity and modernity. These forces are split among the Air Force, Army, Navy and Coast Guard, as well as Search & Rescue and Special Operations forces. Nearly 400 aircraft make up the fleet and include aircraft built in Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, and the US. This fleet nearly constantly updated, modified and renewed. All this in a nation the size geographically and in population the size of US state of South Carolina.

The tip of the UAE’s spear is its fighter squadrons. Consisting of at least 60 French-built Mirage 2000 and 80 US-built F-16 supersonic fighters the squadrons are modern and capable. Emirati F-16s and Mirages deployed in support of NATO’s Operation Odyssey Dawn enforcing the Libyan No-Fly Zone, and AH-64 attack helicopters support NATO operations in Afghanistan. This reflects a national military goal of making the UAE military operationally equivalent to NATO forces. This goal includes all the UAE’s air, ground and sea forces.

What is most fascinating so far, at least to me, is the idea that the most elite of the UAE’s combat organizations is the Apache squadron. All AH-64 combat crews are Emirati and include a smattering of personnel from all strata of Emirati society. UAE Apaches fly alongside US and British AH-64s in Afghanistan. Larger than the equivalent US Army battalion, the unit is an army organization, although it began life as a UAEAF squadron. Command, staff, flight and maintenance personnel are Emirati, though civilian contractors are very active.

I have found in my experience so far that the personnel in the Emirati military are patriotic, conscientious and professional. And they are fully cognizant of their place in the world, especially in the strategic and social senses. Iran is literally just minutes away from the UAE, and the Emirates and Iran are still arguing frequently and vehemently over the Iranian occupation of three islands long claimed by the UAE.

This not insignificant. The UAE, despite its strategic location and total population of somewhere between six-and-eight million, has an indigenous population of around 900,000 Emiratis. The Iranian military has on active duty 545,000 troops. So, you can see why the Emiratis might be nervous. They are trying to counter numerical superiority with technology and solid, realistic, effective training and international cooperation. The UAE has taken a solid leadership position within the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), an organization modeled after the European Union. Additionally, there are US, British and French forces based in the UAE as well as frequent NATO and GCC deployments here. Despite the relatively large military footprint here, one almost never sees a military uniform here in public.

With this international flavor, perhaps it isn’t surprising the frequency of my efforts to drag up my old, high school French, as well as my recently acquired German skills. Just the other day I conversed in French, “Hello!”
            “Hello, how are you?”
            “I’m well, and you?”
            “I'm okay.” We then moved to English to discuss business.

On a side-note, I have also been attending monthly Stammtischen sponsored by the Goethe Institute Abu Dhabi where I get to work on my German language skills. My first invitation to a Stammtisch came from an Emirati friend who spent some time at a technical course in Germany and has worked hard to develop his German language skills.

And, my Arabic is SLOWLY coming along, too!

So here I am, in an Arabic country as a civilian for the first time in my life (I’ve been here twice before as a soldier), and it seems I’m still on the front lines in some way. I pray for the peace and prosperity of this little country. The UAE is a peaceful, modern, prosperous, and liberal country in a sea of violence and intolerance. The Emirates clearly see aviation as an extension of commercial and political power. And it’s also clear that Emiratis understand that military readiness and power are the things that ensure peace and prosperity.