The Week That Will Shape the Winter

Muscat on Monday, Dubai's Travel Market, the Fed on Wednesday: Airlines Say the Gulf Is Coming Back — Slowly

Qatar Airways puts traffic at 90–95 percent of last year and Emirates at 93 percent of pre-war capacity as the region's biggest travel fair opens tomorrow. Whether the winter season follows depends on a meeting Tehran is already talking down.

The week opens with two rooms that matter. In Muscat on Monday, Gulf foreign ministers are due to meet Iran's on an Oman–Iran scheme for "safe passage" through the strait. In Dubai the same morning, the rescheduled Arabian Travel Market opens at the World Trade Centre with more than eighty destinations and three hundred hosted buyers — the first read on tour-operator appetite for the winter and for 2027.

The airlines arrive with a recovery story. Qatar Airways' chief executive, Hamad Ali Al-Khater, told Euronews that passenger numbers are "around 90 to 95 percent of last year's levels," with Hamad International handling more than 140,000 passengers a day; the winter schedule from 25 October runs to more than 170 destinations, London at 56 flights a week, about 1,800 weekly frequencies by December. Emirates carried 8.7 million passengers in July and August against 4.7 million in March and April and says 93 percent of pre-conflict capacity is restored across 140 destinations. Dubai's tourism chief, Issam Kazim, summed up the pitch: "Dubai will come back."

The gaps are equally clear. European long-haul supply into the Gulf stays thin until late October — British Airways returns to Dubai on 25 October, Lufthansa, SWISS and Eurowings on 24 October, Cathay not before 30 November — while flydubai and Air Arabia are still cancelling short-haul Gulf rotations. Dubai International's first-half passengers were down 31 percent; August residential prices in the emirate slipped 1.7 percent year on year. The winter, in other words, will be carried by GCC, Asian and Indian source markets before Europe returns.

Then the money. The Fed decides on Wednesday with a rise now the base case; the U.S. Treasury is expected to name a "large bank" for Iran-related sanctions on Monday; Next plc reports on Thursday. Two weeks out sits the Doha Jewellery and Watches Exhibition (28 September–3 October), the season's first hard-luxury moment; Skift has reported a go/no-go decision on the Lusail Grand Prix (27–29 November) around mid-month. Saudi card data hint at what shoppers will do meanwhile: in the week to 5 September, jewellery spending rose 25.4 percent while clothing fell 9.6 percent.

Sources: Euronews, 11 Sep · Gulf Business, 11 Sep · The National, 11 Sep · Gulf News, 12 Sep · AnewZ (Dubai property — secondary source), 12 Sep · Arab News, 12 Sep · Skift, 4 Sep · Euronews, 11 Sep · Gulf Business, 11 Sep · The National, 11 Sep · Gulf News, 12 Sep · AnewZ, 12 Sep (Dubai property — secondary source) · Arab News, 12 Sep · Skift, 4 Sep