The global commercial aviation market has been growing at about 5% a year in recent years. Gulf carriers have comfortably outpaced this growth, achieving growth of around 10% annually as the Gulf has grown to become an important hub for long-haul flights. Around 80% of the world's population live within a 10 hour flight of the Gulf, meaning that by routing through the Middle East, carriers are able to offer a link between the world's major population centres in the developed and developing economies of the world. Even so, with Emirates alone scheduled to take delivery of more than 2 new widebody aircraft each month for the next 10 years, in order to keep these aircraft full massive network growth will be needed.

Regulation