Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffths has said that the UK government is putting itself at greater risk by keeping Dubai off its air corridor list, saying many other countries allowed to enter the UK are far more dangerous.
“We have made very strong representation to the British government about the credibility of the numbers here and the way we are handling everything, and have actually pointed out that not having direct flights between Dubai and the UK is exposing the country to more risk,” he said during the Business Breakfast on Dubai Eye radio.
His comments were made shortly after Dubai International Airport posted its Q1 2021 results, which were down 62 percent on Q1 2020. With 5.75 million passengers through the airport in the quarter, DXB remained a top international hub, though Griffths said these numbers had the potential to be much stronger.
He said: “Everyone is still committed to the Dubai market, and now we’re waiting for the world to acknowledge the amazing job Dubai has done in terms of vaccines and the progression against the virus, to get those bilateral arrangements in place. That’s the most frustrating part – the numbers could’ve been a lot higher if we had better cooperation around the world acknowledging the position the UAE is in.”
He proposed a taskforce where Dubai would set up outposts around international airports to help them sanitise as heavily as Dubai airports do.
“We’ve also reached out many times to get some form of taskforce together where we can contribute ideas in very practical ways to act as a sort of sanitised outpost for traffic to the UK where we can apply our rigorous hygiene and testing measures, which I think are far better than many other places around the world.”
The UK’s transport secretary Grant Shapps said earlier this month that the reason the UAE is not yet on the UK’s safe travels list is due to its place as a transit hub.
“We are not restricting UAE because of levels of coronavirus in the UAE,” he said. “The specific issue in the UAE is one of transit. It’s because they are a major transit hub.”
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