The UAE's General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) anticipates daily aircraft movements in the country to top 5,100 by 2030, making it one of the busiest airspaces in the world.

The UAE airspace witnessed an average of 2,250 daily aircraft movements in 2014, compared to only 342 daily aircraft movements in 1986.

The number of aircraft registered in the UAE reached 762 in 2014 and UAE-based airlines have 604 aircraft on order until 2030, a senior official disclosed.  

“The UAE airports, while complying with the highest international safety and security standards, offer seamless processing at safety checkpoints and immigration, e-Gate technology and in the case of Abu Dhabi airport, a pioneering security and immigration preclearance to US destinations,” said Sultan bin Saeed Al Mansoori, Minister of Economy and chairman of GCAA.

The GCAA early this year opened its Advance Passenger Information (API) Centre in Abu Dhabi, which will play a role in maintaining the security of UAE’s borders by accessing and assessing information of arriving, departing and transiting passengers by air, sea and land ports.

 “The UAE has always supported integration as a two-way process and the API Centre is a UAE project which works closely with all airports and immigration authorities, and which reflects the excellent cooperation between all entities,” Al Mansouri said.

With the UAE visitors’ growing knowledge of using smart technology and E-systems, the Emirate has been investing heavily in enhancing its airports’ smart gate practice, online check systems, and do-it-yourself luggage methods, among others, which directly shrinks the time-consuming parts for a traveller, he said.

Major General Obaid Mohair bin Suroor, deputy director general of GDRFA-Dubai, said with Dubai airports projected to receive over 100 million passengers by 2020, the GDRFA-Dubai plans to launch an Advance Passenger Information System (APIS).

The APIS aims to raise the security at airports and at the same time reduce the time of passenger-checking procedures to less than 20 seconds. The first phase of APIS will start with the First and Business class passengers of Emirates Airline.

Gradually, it will expand to include the Economy class passengers. At a later stage, the government will circulate guidelines to all the airlines to follow the suit and benefit from the APIS. GDRFA-Dubai will be also be launching APIS for cruise tourists by mid-2015. – TradeArabia News Service