The Sky's the Limit: Predicting the Expansion of Commercial Aviation in Dubai

Abstract

Airlines constantly adapt their flight networks and aircraft mix to represent the most profitable allocation of these resources. In this competitive industry, it is essential that airlines can accurately determine what routes and planes to fly. Dubai International Airport is one of the world’s largest airports with over 90 million annual passengers reaching over 250 destinations. Serving as a worldwide hub for commercial aviation, Dubai plays an integral role in influencing the global industry. Hence, an analysis of the city's aviation industry will allow us to anticipate future changes in the wider market. The goal of this thesis is two-fold; first to predict the future demand for route destinations in Dubai's commercial aviation industry, and second, to use this analysis to determine which plane configurations would be optimum to drive this growth. As a company, an airline is fiscally oriented, and so we will optimise our problem to maximise profits.

In order to forecast Dubai’s aviation market, we will perform a historical analysis on global flights to determine the industry's driving factors and future trends. The methodology is data-driven, generating heuristics to address this issue analytically. We utilise detailed flight data from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the International Civil Aviation Organization. Using this data, we will investigate the many factors that influence the aviation market and study the future changes in the industry. From this, we will build a model that makes a prediction on where industry growth will direct future routes. We will then look at the jet airliner market, which covers a wide range of aircraft in terms of both seating capacity and range. With the high costs of commercial planes, picking the right mix of aircraft with a given budget is important to recover their initial sunk cost and ensure future profitability. By analysing the aircraft market, we can then recommend which destinations Dubai-based airlines should consider for future flights and what planes to operate along these routes to capture market growth and ensure profitability.