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It's official - UAE's Al Ain Airport will be used as one of Virgin Galactic's spaceports for flights that will take common travellers into space for a price of $250,000 per ticket.
Also read: 11 Arab nations to work on historic satellite in UAE
The UAE Space Agency signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Abu Dhabi Airports - which operates Al Ain Airport - to use their facilities for commercial space flights. The agreement was made official after years of talks between Virgin Galactic and the UAE Space Agency on this regard.
The news was confirmed to Khaleej Times by the CEO of Abu Dhabi Airports, Bryan Thompson, on the sidelines of the Global Space Congress' second day in Abu Dhabi, where the MoU was signed as well.
"We feel that we can play a role in supporting that activity in the future. We believe that we would like to be part of supporting this activity. Who knows how big this is going to get," he said.
Al Ain Airport will be one of many Virgin Galactic's spaceports for sub-orbital flights. Their initial one will be located in New Mexico and they are in talks with countries such as UK also.
Thompson revealed that no new construction is under plans at the airport so far, as the flights require a regular horizontal runway that is used for traditional airplanes.
"If you go to Al Ain all the facilities have been constructed and there's some great state-of-the-art facilities. The runways and terminals are there. It's really up to them what the next steps are," he said.
As for when the flights will be operational - it depends on when Virgin Galactic completes their test flights.
They've already had two successful test flights, one in December and the other in February. The CEO of Virgin Galactic, George Whitesides, told KT that there are a "few more" tests flights to be carried out before the flights open for business.
More than 600 tickets have already been sold and flights are fully booked until 2021. Speaking about the price of the ticket, Whitesides said: "At first the prices will hike and then they will see a significant drop," he said. "Long term they will be reduced substantially, but in the immediate might actually go up a little bit."
sarwat@khaleejtimes.com
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