Gulf Air and Middle East Airlines have concluded a Code Share Agreement, which was signed in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Manama, on 25 April 2005.
The agreement, which comes into effect on 1 June, 2005 was signed by Gulf Air Vice President Network Fareed Al Alawi and Middle East Airlines Head of Commercial Nizar Khoury and makes provision for code shared flights between Abu Dhabi and Beirut to be operated by Middle East Airlines.
“This code share reinforces both airlines’ position on this important market and will allow us to offer our customers enhanced services. It is also in line with MEA’s vision of co-operation between inter-Arab carriers,” said Mr Khoury.
Mr. Al Alawi said the agreement allows for joint marketing and initiatives, to promote travel between Lebanon and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates and other destinations beyond the shared network.
“Gulf Air and Middle East Airlines will jointly offer their respective customers increased choice,” he said.
“This agreement is in line with our objective to establish strategic partnerships and alliances to complement and add value to our network. By extending our relationships through alliances we are able to achieve cost savings through economies of scale and by optimising synergies. Customers also benefit by having access to a wider network of destinations with more choice.
“While membership of a global alliance continues to be a long-term goal, we are simultaneously strengthening and developing bilateral partnerships with members of all global alliances, and those that are non-aligned, to complement and add value to the Gulf Air network providing customers with additional network destinations and more choice.”
In 2004 Gulf Air signed new commercial agreements with KLM, Garuda, Royal Jordanian and Egypt Air.
“Attention was also paid to strengthening existing bilateral alliances to complement and add value to our own network, including those with bmi, American Airlines, Saudi Airlines and Oman Air, which were enhanced and extended,” added Mr Al Alawi.
MEA also signed code share agreements with Air France and Qatar Airways.
As Dubai becomes renowned for being in the vanguard of next generation tower design and construction, there are still persistent issues which are challenging the industry, according to Convrgnt Value Engineering LLC.
The company, which has more than 30 years experience in construction projects throughout the country, says that issues such as delayed project completion, rising costs and declining quality are persistent challenges for large scale tower projects.
Commenting on the difficulty, John Clarke, Business Development Manager, Convrgnt, said: “In theory towers should be easier to construct than the logistically challenging wide area developments. However, in the absence of a definitive construction process, it is clear that many towers projects suffer from considerable delays. This has an inevitable affect on the cost for the contractor, delays in project completion which has a knock on affect on the timely expectation of the end user and drastically impacts the feasibility, cash flow of the developer. The effects of the poor quality of the finished tower significantly affect the developer and the end user. With the right approach this can be easily avoided and it’s something which we can address.”
“Developers and end users have all now run through one complete cycle, from start to almost finished, of high-rise construction undertakings and realised that what appeared to be a good deal (price on performance) in the beginning isn’t quite so.”
Clarke went on to say that Convrgnt is now going to re-enter the tower building arena because of the need for construction companies that can deliver on all expectations. “Although many contractors are willing to offer low prices, some can fast-track jobs, few can produce high quality work but only a select number are able to keep the commitment on all of these factors at the same time and are cost effective. As construction costs continue to rise, budgets are being exceeded and our approach would be to create an environment where the developer, consultants, architects and the contractor work together to ensure that projects deliver on the key elements.”
Expanding on the reasons for reentering the high-rise towers arena, Clarke said: “The company has more than 30 years experience in design and build and value engineering. We spent the first 15 years building the early tower projects in Dubai but for the last decade or so have decided to focus on wide area developments since they were the more challenging sector at the time. Having proved ourselves in this area, we are now ready to take all our skills, techniques and methodologies and apply them to high-rise building construction which are small footprint sites but could do well in capitalising on our fast-track discipline of executing a given volume in the shortest possible time span.
“It’s all a question of emphasis on anticipation, planning, and reaction. Everyone knows what to do when something goes wrong, the trick is to know before something goes awry and preempting the inevitable. We always carry a contingency plan for every variable that will affect a milestone and our investment in new technologies, equipment and delivery means gives us the flexibility to recover a performance lapse by third parties. Our management and supervisory core of some 200 staff have not only been honed and trained to work on fast-track but use creative ideas in cutting time and cost without compromising on quality and safety.”
Convrgnt’s experience gives it the edge in terms of skill and processes that will counter the challenges beset in high-rise tower construction. “We are confident that our experience and our investment in key production facilities like mobile batch the mobile rebar plant will make a significant change in the time frame and quality of towers development,” continued Clarke.
According to Clarke, the industry is starting to transform and is slowly moving away from the tender based working practices to negotiated practices on GMP – guaranteed maximum price. “This allows us to illustrate our design and build and value engineering credentials and gives the client a cost for development that takes into account commitments to quality and concept.”
