MANILA – The World Expo 2020 set in Dubai will create an estimated 275,000 jobs and Filipinos will expectedly fill up a lot of these vacancies, said Abdalla Al Zamani, country manager of Emirates in the Philippines.

These new jobs will be in the areas of medical services, engineering, and information technology, he said at a press briefing that included journalists Emirates flew in from the Middle East for a familiarization tour of the Philippines.

This increase in employment of Filipinos to Dubai necessitates the increase of the number of flights to the Middle East commercial and aviation hub, Zamani said, calling on the Philippine government to start the bilateral air talks so that this would become possible.

Until January this year, Emirates used to fly three times a day between Manila and Dubai. But the Civil Aviation Board cut the number of Emirates flights down to two a day.

Zamani said as it is, with almost 800,000 overseas Filipino workers in Dubai, many of them going back and forth for vacation and work, the number of flights is not enough to accommodate the demand.

The ideal number of flights is 40 per week, he said.

Aside from Emirates, Philippine Airlines also flies twice daily to Dubai.

Zamani said that even with more airlines servicing the route, there is still room for more flights.

Source: Interaksyon