It’s the final day of Dubai’s top aviation exhibition, credited with being a good barometer of the industry and the best place to buy a Boeing or Airbus. This week we’ve seen some breathtaking displays and heard about some mega deals being signed.

For the best news and pictures from the show, click on the links below. Click HERE for the official air show website.

AB.com: Dubai ready to lead aviation recovery - Sheikh Ahmed

AB.com: flydubai eyes move into holidays to boost revenue

AB.com: Oman Air eyes growth after new planes deal

National: Boeing hard at work on airline’s weight woes

BBC: Airbus beats Boeing at air show

Telegraph: Airbus sells first 840-seat airliner

Reuters: Airbus, Nepal Airlines in deal for two aircraft

PICTURES

Daredevil pilots at Dubai air show

Dubai air show 2009 - day 1

Air show pics - day 2

Day 3

We like the story today in the National today that Abu Dhabi police have built the world’s fastest police car.

Not wanting to be left out of the Grand Prix fever gripping the capital, the cops built their very own F1 car, aptly named F999.

It can travel at 400kph and has been kitted out with flashing lights, sirens and a police radio and will be unveiled to the public on October 28 at Abu Dhabi Corniche.

It’s a shame it’s just for show and will never make it on to the city’s streets. The police could do with it to keep up with speeding drivers.

AB driving-related stories

80% of people support driving age limit increase

Gucci seatbelt plan to get young drivers to buckle up

324 motorists stripped of licence in six months

Majority think UAE motorists ‘drive like maniacs’ - poll

Action call as UAE roads rank among deadliest

Service: Vistajet Learjet 60XR flight London-Nice-London
Price: 4,333 euros
Online: http://www.vistajet.com

Travelling by private jet is a luxury few of us will ever pay for out of our own pockets. It is typically paid for by multinational companies, who then might bestow their generosity on the rest of us little people with an occasional jolly in their planes.

So it was for me as I was invited to interview Thomas Flohr, the owner of Vistajet, a private jet leasing business, on his 42 metre yacht moored in Monaco, the heart of the French Riviera.

I approached the trip with journalistic cynicism: Mr Flohr has something to sell to the readers of Arabian Business and he’s sparing no expense to get a glowing report.

The chauffer-driven top-of-the-line Mercedes S-Class that picked me up from home was a reasonable start. But given that it was 5.30am when we set off, my first thought was not so much, ‘thanks for the luxury ride,’ but more, ‘who on earth woke me up at this time in the morning?’

I thought private jet travel was about building the schedule around the individual. I would have preferred my schedule to begin after 8am.

By the time I’d arrived at the private terminal at Farnborough, a medium-sized town south-west of London, at 7am, I’d snatched another hour’s sleep and was ready to face the day.

VistaJet’s Bombardier Learjet  60XR accommodates up to six passengers, two pilots and a flight attendant. Four individual seats and a bench seat for three people, all in cream leather are comfortable enough, if a little cramped. There is considerably less leg room than a commercial business class seat, and few other frills for individual passengers. There are no individual TV screens or phones, although there are two screens showing the flight path, and an onboard phone that any passenger can use.

With a range of just under 4500km - a flight that will get you from Dubai to Moscow or the east coast of India, but not to Zurich or Singapore - this is not a plane for the long haul. Its top speed of 863km/h, almost as fast as a commercial airliner, is what will interest busy executives most. It rocketed us from London to Nice in just over an hour and a half and will do the Middle East to central Europe in around five hours.

If you want to reach London from the Middle East, Vistajet can offer the Challenger 605 or the largest plane in its fleet, the Global Express, which will get from the Middle East to Australia, non-stop, and offers considerably more space and comfort, including flat beds.

Our flight was full: three reporters, a TV presenter, her camerawoman, our PR host, the flight attendant and two pilots. We were all travelling light, but the only place to put laptop cases and cameras was in the toilet, an inconvenience for anybody needing the convenience.

Breakfast was business class standard, and the uneventful flight was forgettable. There is little opportunity to wow passengers in a cabin measuring 1.2m by 5.4m. Perhaps the only perk is access to the flight deck, so you can get a truly bird’s eye view of proceedings.

We landed at Nice airport and whizzed through a private security channel, but then found ourselves in the same terminal as the Easyjet passengers who had just paid around 4,200 euros less for the same journey.

The price of the flight is an interesting equation. Vistajet wants people to buy “programmes”, which give them a certain number of flying hours for a fixed annual price. This, the company claims, allows them to offer a better quality of service at a lower price than the market’s biggest player, Netjets.

The minimum programme of 100 hours per year costs 625,000 euros. Our return trip used up four hours flying time, costing 26,000 euros, or 4,333 euros per person (you pay per hour for the plane, not per person).

The actual cost over the course of a year is more complicated than this, but it gives you a rough idea of affordability. Booking ad hoc flights on demand is typically more expensive.

Despite the fact that we enjoyed a delicious lunch in glorious sunshine with impeccable hosts and hospitality on Mr Flohr’s staggeringly beautiful boat in Monaco, I still had a niggling feeling of being underwhelmed by the whole private jet experience.

Yes, we got to Monaco comfortably before lunch, but so did the Easyjet passengers we mixed with at Nice airport. Of course, we did the trip in considerable style, but nothing like the luxury you get on the top deck of an Emirates A380.

These are unfair comparisons, and not entirely relevant for Vistajet’s target market of multi-millionaires who fall just shy of the wealth required to own a plane outright (a target market described by Mr Flohr as individuals with net worth of around $100-200 million).

And it was these customers that I had in mind when the private jet concept fell into place right at the end of our round trip.

The flight back to Farnborough was lifted by some amiable banter with my new found media friends and a few bottles of excellent Chablis. But I was still silently dreading what I expected to be a two hour journey from south-west of London, to my home north of London round the dreaded M25.

However, on landing at Farnborough, I discovered that the overnight stopover for the plane would be at London Luton Airport, a mere half an hour from my front door.

“Can I catch a lift?” I asked with my cheekiest winning smile. “Of course,” replied the pilot. I just need to make a phone call to clear it.

So, having dropped off my new chums at the airport nearest to their homes and offices, I was left alone on the 25 minute flight to the runway a stone’s throw from my house.

This, I discovered at last, is the reason for private aviation. It is not the leather seats, the private terminals, the chauffer driven transfers or even the bragging rights. It is the difference between catching a bus and calling for a taxi. You can drop your mates off at their place before carrying on to yours at any time of the day you choose.

The Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) of Dubai must be delighted. According to a poll on its own web site, 61 percent of commuters will use the Metro to get to work once it is launched.

A mere 21 percent of the population will not use it to get to work, and 16 percent are undecided.

This is not a small poll where only RTA employees cast their votes. The web site counter says that 18,901 people have voted.

On the same web site a few months ago, an almost identical poll asked whether people will use the new public buses in Dubai. 59 percent said they will.

The results of these surveys are not necessarily contradictory. After all, it is possible for six out of every ten people to commute to work on the Metro, and to use new public buses. Indeed, this is exactly what the RTA would like: catch a bus from home to the Metro stations, and continue your journey to work on the train.

So it seems that what the RTA wants, it gets, even when it comes to results of spot polls on its web site.

As the anticipation and arguments build up ahead of Dubai Metro’s launch on 09.09.09, I’m reminded of another epochal event in the world’s transportation history - the launch of Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, in India.

In fact, there’s a similarity - both the achievements are significant, yet have been constant subjects of scathing scepticism.

If it was the overcrowded ‘public transport’ and the lack of a cheap vehicle for an Indian ‘family of four’ that gave birth to the $2000 Tata Nano - it is the necessity to curb the burgeoning boom of private vehicles - that  Dubai’s Road Transport Authority resolved to push ahead with a world-class ‘mass transport’ system.

If the Tata Nano-bashers waited to see whether the car would indeed hit the roads at its promised price of $2000, the Dubai Metro-bashers are rubbing their hands in delight with the prospects that not ‘all the stations’ would become operational on Sept 9, as the RTA had promised.

But even while ‘intellectuals’ have argued over the social, financial, political, economic and environmental implications of the projects – one sect of people would have been earnestly praying for the successful completion of these endeavours.

The father of the Nano, Ratan Tata saw from the comfort of his car - an Indian couple travelling on a two-wheeler scooter in the lashing rains – their little son standing at the front; the wife riding pillion, a child in her hand. Moved by their plight, he vowed to create the world cheapest car.

If you visit any of the bus-stops at Dubai’s Trade Centre roundabout, watch the anxiety and desperation on the faces of the low-wage and medium-wage-earning blue and white-collared workers, as they scramble to catch their bus.

Observe the disappointed shake of their head when they are asked by the bus driver to step down after a 30-minute wait – because the vehicle is loaded to its full capacity. You won’t understand what the Filipinos, the Malayalees or the Pathans mutter to themselves, but yes – you do know that their ‘tone’ is the same – of helplessness.

The Tata Nano is a blessing for the family who might have otherwise been drenched in the rains - choosing to ply riskily on its two-wheeler, wait for an eternity to be able to board a crowded train or a bus or plead before a cab or autorickshaw driver to drop them home. (Most of them don’t, especially if they think they won’t get a return fare.)

Are things different in Dubai for those at the Trade Centre R/A? It’s the sweltering heat here, the prohibitive taxi fares (the waiting charges have made it worse) and the long wait for their particular bus.

As for the arguments of interconnectivity - those who currently walk a mile to their bus-stops in any case – will they really crib much about finding their nearest Metro station?

They might not be the ones who would actively participate or even have an access to online polls slamming the Metro or bashing the city. But they surely have something that will keep them taking the train with pride and gratitude. Dire need.

For them, the Tata Nano or the Dubai Metro might offer a true vehicle of liberation and freedom.