UAE: AED 15 BAHRAIN: BHD 1.500 OMAN: OMR 1.500 KUWAIT: KWD 1.200 #21/10 May 17 – 30, 2020 An ITP Media Gr oup P ublic ation Arabian Business / Dubai Mumbai London New York The future is uncertain for the $55bn industry The future is uncertain for the $55bn industry bearing the brunt of Covid-19bearing the brunt of Covid-19For more information IF THE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS IF ONLY there was a place that provided unparalleled access to the fast-growing Middle East, Africa and South Asia markets. IF ONLY there was a place with an internationally recognised legal and regulatory infrastructure. IF ONLY there was a place with an established ecosystem of over 24,000 professionals working across 2,200 top global companies. There is. DIFC. Set up your business in the region’s leading financial hub today. @difcdifc.aewww.arabianbusiness.comSUBSCRIBE NOW +971 4444 3000 www.itp.com/subscription 3 C OVER S T O RY What next for shopping malls? The future is uncertain for the $55bn industry bearing the brunt of Covid-19 GAMING Pandemic players In the age of Covid-19 and lockdown restrictions, bored residents in the Middle East are turning to video games for entertainment - and company EMPL OYMENT Working from home – the new norm? Could the Covid-19 pandemic leave a lasting impression on how companies, and staff members, operate going forward? 14 arabianbusiness#arabian businessarabianbusiness By Lubna Hamdan 2620 #21/10 May 17 – 30, 2020 Arabian Business /Contents FIR S T WORD q Emirates is already helping Etihad restructure its order book, which will see it commit to taking in only a fraction of aircraft it had sought” eady tructure ich will aking in aircraft Lubna Hamdan Editor Lubna.Hamdan@itp.com4 C ONTENT S 32 LIQUID AS SET S Review: 1847 executive grooming for men Getting a haircut in the Covid-19 era is a strange experience, but one that becomes an absolute necessity as the pandemic grinds on 12 THE BIG PICTURE DUBAI’S MOVE TO CONTAIN COVID-19 A view of an advertisement board on display in a street in Dubai, advising residents to remain at home due to the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic It’s well worth the effort to familiarise yourself with regulations before setting up a business anywhere in the UAE 34 FIVE THINGS T O KNOW ABOUT... C OMMENT 10 REAL ESTATE The pandemic has altered our perception of life and work but future home buyers and renters will emerge as winners, even in this challenging market, says Jassim Alseddiqi, CEO of Abu Dhabi Financial Group (ADFG) and Shuaa CapitalFOR SPONSORSHIP ENQUIRIES Anup Nagpurkar Group Sales Manager +971 4 444 3373 + 971 52 895 0931 anup.nagpurkar@itp.com FOR NOMINATION ENQUIRIES Tom Oxtoby Editor, +971 4 444 3419 tom.oxtoby@itp.com FOR EVENT ENQUIRIES Teri Dunstan Events Manager +971 4 444 3227 teri.dunstan@itp.com FOR TABLE BOOKING ENQUIRIES Anthony Chandran Table Sales Executive +971 4 444 3865 anthony.chandran@itp.com Visit www.mepmiddleeast.com/awards for more information or contact one of the team today SUBMIT YOUR NOMINATIONS TODAY Wednesday 30th September 2020 GOLD SPONSORSPLATINUM SPONSOR The MEP Middle East Awards are an opportunity to highlight the excellence in MEP design and installation underpinning those iconic projects contributing to the evolving construction landscape in the Middle East.INDEP TH NEWS S U B S CRIBE NOW www.itp.com/subscriptions +971 4 4443000 AD VER TISEMENT EXPER T VIEWS EXCLU SIVE INTERVIEWS PUBLISHED BY AND © 2020 ITP MEDIA GROUP FZ-LLC. 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PO Box 500024, Dubai, UAE Tel: +971 4 444 3000 Offices in KSA, UAE, UK, US, and INDIA ITP MEDIA GROUP CEO Ali Akawi MANAGING DIRECTOR Sue Holt DEPUTY MANAGING DIRECTOR Anil Bhoyrul EDITORIAL EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Rob Corder, rob.corder@itp.com EDITOR Lubna Hamdan, +971 4 444 3466, lubna.hamdan@itp.com DEPUTY EDITOR Bernd Debusmann Jr, +971 4 444 3145, bernd.debusmann@itp.com CHIEF REPORTER Gavin Gibbon, +971 4 444 3845, gavin.gibbon@itp.com HEAD OF VIDEO CONTENT Shruthi Nair, +971 4 444 3264, shruthi.nair@itp.com SUB EDITOR Edward Liamzon, +971 4 444 3474, edward.liamzon@itp.com ARABIANBUSINESS.COM EDITOR Neil Halligan, +971 4 444 3605, neil.halligan@itp.com UK EDITOR Alicia Buller INDIA EDITOR James Mathew STUDIO CREATIVE DIRECTOR Adrian Luca STUDIO MANAGER Abuzar Samo SENIOR IMAGE EDITOR Emmalyn Robles SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHERS Efraim Evidor, Adel Rashid STAFF PHOTOGRAPHERS Aasiya Jagadeesh, Ajith Narendra, Fritz John Asuro, Yuliya Petrovich, Jessica Samson PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION GROUP PRODUCTION & DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR Kyle Smith PRODUCTION MANAGER Basel Al Kassem PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Manoj Mahadevan EVENTS & MARKETING DIRECTOR OF AWARDS & MARKETING Daniel Fewtrell +971 4 444 3684, Daniel Fewtrell@itp.com CIRCULATION DISTRIBUTION & WAREHOUSE MANAGER Praveen Nair CIRCULATION EXECUTIVE Loreta Regencia ADVERTISING GROUP COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Joe Chidiac, +971 4 444 3121, joe.chidiac@itp.com HEAD OF SALES – AGENCIES Mario Saaiby, +971 4 444 3592, mario.saaiby@itp.com SALES MANAGER Dima Mousseli, +971 4 444 3589, dima.mousseli@itp.com DIGITAL GROUP COMMERCIAL DIRECTOR Joe Chidiac, +971 4 444 3121, joe.chidiac@itp.com HEAD OF SALES – AGENCIES Mario Saaiby, +971 4 444 3592, mario.saaiby@itp.com ITP GROUP CEO Ali Akawi CFO Toby Jay Spencer-Davies CORPORATE WEBSITE itp.com CIRCULATION CUSTOMER SERVICE +971 4 444 3000 WEB arabianbusiness.comSPONSORSHIP ENQUIRIES: THOMAS LAMBERT SALES MANAGER TEL: +971 4 444 3637 / MOBILE +971 55 760 0707 EMAIL:THOMAS.LAMBERT@ITP.COM EVENT & ENQUIRIES: TERI DUNSTAN EVENTS MANAGER TEL: +971 4 444 3227 EMAIL: TERI.DUNSTAN@ITP.COM WINNERS REVEALED LIVE ONLINE WEDNESDAY 3RD JUNE 2020 GST 13:00 www.digitalstudiome.com/awardswww.digitalstudiome.com/awards Pro Audio PartnerFIR S T WORD / Lubna Hamdan, Editor FI RS TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT WOWOWWOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWRD / Lu 8 Vol. 21/10, May 2020 Q EMIRATES IS ALREADY HELPING ETIHAD RESTRUCTURE ITS ORDER BOOK, WHICH WILL SEE IT COMMIT TO TAKING IN ONLY A FRACTION OF AIRCRAFT IT HAD SOUGHT” Maybe it’s time for Emirates and Etihad to hook up It’s complicated but a merger would create the biggest carrier by passenger traffic plan, particularly with Expo 2020 in the pipeline. While the event has been delayed to 2021, it hasn’t revised its 25 million target visits, which means a huge surge of travellers to Dubai. So if Emirates were to merge with Etihad, it wouldn’t have to worry about a shortage in planes. Etihad has the Dreamliners, the A380s, and tons of planes. Adjusting aircraft for different routes increases the complexity of operations, but also provides flexibility in the post-Covid era, when experts predict travel demand will return in chunks, particularly in the region, whether it is to the Expo or 2022 World Cup. Need a hub? If they were to merge, they may have the perfect hub: Dubai World Central (DWC). Aviation analysts have previously suggested Dubai could focus on European travellers while Abu Dhabi would cater to US passengers since it has a US pre-clearance facility that speeds passage. But it’s never been done before. An analyst who spoke on condition of anonymity told Arabian Business it will take a massive jump in passenger travel to make a new hub work. “Could you have three airlines operating out of two hubs 60 or 80 kilometres apart?” he argues, adding that while a merger makes sense in terms of revenue, operational costs “would hit the roof,” meaning they won’t be profitable for a long time, particularly if Emirates is to fly Etihad’s fleet. “That increases complexity. It’s a complete nightmare doing that strategy. The one person who has always been great at that is Tim Clark, but he’s leaving,” he says. While Clark was set to retire at the end of June 2020, he hinted in an interview with The National that he will stay “for the time it takes the management group that I am working with to get a way forward and then we’ll see after that how it goes on,” he said. Us against the world A combined Emirates and Etihad force will also allow the airlines to increase their leverage among international competition. Emirates is already helping Etihad restructure its order book, which will see it commit to taking in only a fraction of aircraft it had sought. It looks like Emirates may be grooming Etihad for a merger after all. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT that two of the Middle East’s largest airlines, who have denied rumours of a merger for years, would release a joint statement? Then again, who would have predicted that a virus would wipe out $314bn in ticket sales in 2020? In May, Emirates airline President Tim Clark and Etihad Airways CEO Tony Douglas warned that 85 percent of airlines globally face insolvency by the end of the year without government intervention. It may have taken a global health pandemic, but maybe now is the time for the airlines to hook up. They already cooperate in aviation security, maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) works. Emirates’ tie-up with Flydubai in terms has also kind of transformed into a de facto merger. So what is keeping them from creating the world’s biggest carrier by passenger traffic? Well it’s a little more complicated than it seems. A win-win On the one hand, a merger will help Etihad Airways cut its losses, which it managed to shrink from $1.52bn in 2017 to $1.28bn in 2018, extending the deficit over three years to $4.8bn thanks in no small part to investments in Alitalia, Air Berlin and India’s Jet Airways which turned sour. Emirates would also have to take on the Abu Dhabi carrier’s struggling load factor, having carried over a million passengers less in 2018 compared to 2017. But there’s something in it for the Dubai carrier too. A merger with Etihad could help lessen Flydubai’s exposure to Boeing, with which it made a $27bn deal to purchase 225 of the troubled 737 Max aircraft, not to mention it is the aircraft manufacturer’s second biggest customer for the plane crippled by technical problems. It doesn’t help that it also depends largely on the industry’s two largest aircraft, the Airbus A380 and Boeing 777, which have become less popular due to their high running and fuel costs – now an even bigger concern since Covid-19. While Clark told local media that the A380 “is over,” the aircraft still forms the backbone of the airline’s operations, with 115 A380s in its fleet, and eight more to be delivered. And despite Clark and Douglas’ claim that passenger demand won’t return to pre-crisis levels until at least 2023, the UAE is still pursuing an aggressive travel expansion u Fly with me Emirates may be grooming Etihad for a merger post Covid-19A CELEBRATION OF EXCELLENCE IN FACILITIES MANAGEMENT In association with FOR NOMINATION ENQUIRIES, CONTACT: RAJIV PILLAI Editor Tel: +971 4 444 3588 Email: rajiv.pillai@itp.com FOR EVENT NQUIRIES, CONTACT: TERI DUNSTAN Events Manager Tel: +971 4 444 3227 Email: teri.dunstan@itp.com SILVER SPONSORS FACILITIES & CONTRACTING CATEGORY SPONSORS FOR TABLE SALES ENQUIRIES, CONTACT: ANTHONY CHANDRAN Table Sales Executive Tel: +971 4 444 3685 Email: anthony.chandran@itp.com Now in their 13th year, the Facilities Management Middle East Awards will once again bring the FM sector together to acknowledge the region’s top performers. FOR SPONSORSHIP ENQUIRIES, CONTACT: VINAY RAVINDRAN Group Sales Manager Tel: +971 4 444 3155 Mobile: +971 55 810 1197 Email: vinay.ravindran@itp.com WINNERS TO BE REVELAED ONLINE WEDNDESDAY 10TH JUNE www.FM-middleeast.com #FMMEAwardsNext >