{"id":13332,"date":"2019-04-29T14:40:49","date_gmt":"2019-04-29T10:40:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/?p=13332"},"modified":"2019-04-29T14:40:49","modified_gmt":"2019-04-29T10:40:49","slug":"inaugural-connect-middle-east-india-africa-opens-tomorrow-alongside-atm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/inaugural-connect-middle-east-india-africa-opens-tomorrow-alongside-atm\/","title":{"rendered":"Inaugural CONNECT Middle East, India & Africa Opens Tomorrow Alongside ATM"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than 300 aviation and airport professionals will be heading to the first CONNECT Middle East, India & Africa (MEIA)<\/a> conference which gets underway tomorrow (Tuesday 30 April<\/strong>).<\/p>\n

The two-day meet, which is co-located with Arabian Travel Market 2019<\/a>, unites airline and airport executives with manufacturers and suppliers, providing a global forum for business and networking opportunities. More than 40 airlines have confirmed their attendance.<\/p>\n

Alongside the conference programme, delegates can book one-to-one appointments in airline and airport meeting lounges and enjoy evening networking events.<\/p>\n

Karin Butot<\/a>, CEO, The Airport Agency<\/a>, said: \u201cCONNECT is a new addition to the route development calendar and co-located with ATM is a natural choice given the unprecedented growth in aviation across the region. We look forward to welcoming delegates to what promises to be a series of lively debates and discussions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Middle East\u2019s airline seat count has doubled in the last 10 years, and last year saw 264.31 million scheduled departing seats, according to anna.aero data.<\/p>\n

Growth has been fuelled by the major expansion of scheduled carriers and more recently, low-cost airlines, which now accounts for 16 per cent of all departing seats.<\/p>\n

Dubai International Airport, the world\u2019s largest airport for international passenger numbers, recording 89.1 million passengers last year, accounts for 22 per cent of all departing seats in the Middle East.<\/p>\n

Nick Pilbeam<\/a>, Divisional Director, Reed Travel Exhibitions<\/a>, said: \u201cTwo-thirds of the world\u2019s population are within an eight-hour flight of the GCC and the region\u2019s airlines are continuously adding new routes, to connect to fresh destinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kicking off the two-day event will be a training workshop entitled \u2018The Simpson Paradox in Donut Crunching\u2019 \u2013 showing how best to achieve better data accuracy when estimating a route\u2019s potential.<\/p>\n

John Strickland<\/a>, Director, JLS Consulting, will then give a keynote presentation on \u2018The State of the Airline Industry\u2019 which will be followed by a briefing from Airbus which will provide updates on product lines, infrastructure regulation, airline technologies and airport capacity challenges.<\/p>\n

China Southern Airline will hold a dedicated briefing highlighting its dual-hub strategy in Guangzhou and Beijing Daxing International Airport.<\/p>\n

After lunch, the second keynote presentation will be European Union External Aviation Policy, in which Annabelle Lepiece<\/a>, Partner, CMS DeBacker, will outline how ongoing negotiations for comprehensive air transport agreements between the EU and GCC are being \u201champered by protectionist voices\u201d.<\/p>\n

Day one rounds off with a panel discussion on the regional opportunities and challenges, and a seminar on the relationship between air service development and infrastructure, followed by a networking event at Palace Downtown Dubai viewing deck.<\/p>\n

The second day will analyse how airports and their regions can work together to attract new airline services and include a presentation on Dubai World Central Airport from Nathalie Jongma, Head \u2013 Aviation Business Management, Dubai Airports.<\/p>\n

Panelists will also discuss the opportunities and threats for the rapidly growing African aviation market.<\/p>\n

CONNECT MEIA forms part of Arabian Travel Week 2019, an umbrella brand that comprises three other co-located shows, including Arabian Travel Market, ATM Holiday Shopper and International Luxury Travel Market Arabia.<\/p>\n

For more information about ATM 2019, visit: https:\/\/arabiantravelmarket.wtm.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

To find out more about CONNECT MEIA, visit: https:\/\/connect-aviation.com\/2019-meia<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than 300 aviation and airport professionals will be heading to the first CONNECT Middle East, India & Africa (MEIA) conference which gets underway tomorrow (Tuesday 30 April). The two-day meet, which is co-located with Arabian Travel Market 2019, unites airline and airport executives with manufacturers and suppliers, providing a global forum for business and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13334,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13332"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13332\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13335,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13332\/revisions\/13335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.middleeastevents.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}