Dubai mulls reducing service fees for aviation-related activities

Dubai - 'As part of the government's initiative to make the emirate more competitive and grow aviation business.'

Dubai Civil Aviation Authority (DCAA), which oversees all aviation-related activities in the emirate, is considering reducing fees for its services as part of the government's initiative to make the emirate more competitive and grow aviation business, a senior government official said on Monday.
Speaking on the sidelines of Airports Show, Nasser Mubarak Al Khater, head of aviation business affairs and consumer protection section at Air Transport Department at DCAA, said fee reduction is currently under discussion.
"Based on the instruction of the high authorities, we are discussing the best possible way for the fee reduction for aviation business such as issuance of licences and no objection certificates issued to our customers and stakeholders with regard to aviation activities such as aircraft manufacturing, aircraft parts manufacturing and trading in spare parts," Al Khater said.
Last week, Dr Mohammed Alzarooni, vice-chairman and CEO of DSOA and director-general of Dafza, also told Khaleej Times in an interview that the two free zones - Dubai Silicon Oasis Authority (DSOA) and Dubai Airport Free Zone Authority (Dafza) - are also mulling cutting fees to attract more foreign companies as part of Dubai government initiative to make the emirate more competitive and investor-friendly. These initiatives will also help improve the emirate's rating in ease-of-doing business rankings.
Nasser Mubarak Al Khater said DCAA has also deployed Artificial Intelligence which has substantially reduced the time required to obtain its services.
"We have reduced the time for a number of services following the implementation of AI in our services. We now issue no objection certificates to our customers within 15 minutes from 3 days earlier. Overall, using AI has reduced the time spent on each permission from one day to half-an-hour and it is way much advanced when compared to international standards," he added.
Internationally, it takes from 2 days up to 1 month to get landing rights. Currently, DCAA are offering landing rights in 15 minutes to chartered airlines when they request to land at any of the airports in Dubai, he said, adding that DCAA is embedding AI in all of its services.
"We started with the landing services and hopefully in the very near future AI will be implemented across the board in all the services," he concluded.
waheedabbas@khaleejtimes.com

• Dubai