KEY POINTS:
The Herald's aviation reporter Grant Bradley likes planes - lucky - since he's spending around 70 hours solid hours flying on a global odyssey this week, including a whistle-stop flight to New York on Emirates Airlines' first commercial flight of its new superjumbo - the A380.
Flying into Dubai it's clear they don't do things in halves in this emirate. You get a clear view of new developments stretch far into the desert which is being tamed with canals, hundreds of square kilometres of reclaimed land in the shape of palms and a map of the world dotted with multi-million dollar villas for the likes of the Beckhams (apparently) and other celebrities and the Burj Dubai which with a bit of Kiwi help promises to be the world's tallest building.
And there below us is the mighty commercial port area that is said to be visible from the Moon.
But stepping off the plane at 6.15am there's nothing bigger than the heat - a wilting 32C and forecast to climb to 42C later today.
"Welcome to the sauna," our friendly cabin attendant said.
A dust storm swept in from the desert yesterday, leaving a grey haze throughout the city and threatening higher levels of humidity.
Coming from a rain soaked, storm lashed Auckland, who's complaining and as it typically rains only a few days a year I'd have to be unlucky to need an umbrella during my short stay.
This is high summer in Dubai - when tourists generally avoid the place - and in fine tradition papers carry stories on whether this is the hottest year on record, theories on why this is so (the heat trapping affect of the building boom is one) and bloggers complain about landlords meeting air conditioning obligations for apartments but then charging a "freezer levy."
And besides dodgy landlords the other familiar complaint is traffic congestion.This is a big car city with large American gas quzzlers. But the price of fuel is just over a third that in New Zealand and unless you're in the not in the low paid service sector or worse a guest worker in the construction industry the same discretionary spending dilemma as in other countries does not apply.
The place is booming, from the air and the quick drive from the airport makes that clear. A glance at headlines of car sales up 40 per cent this year and a big developer's profit up nearly 500 per cent are evidence of it.
In 1958 not one commercial plane landed in Dubai, now the sprawling airport handles more than 30 million passengers and another being built out of the city of 1.3 million will rival Heathrow.
Booms always end - it's the nature of things but in this pumped up place there's a way to run yet.
The hulking great Airbus A380 delivered to Emirates this week sits in an engineering hangar being polished and buffed for the model's debut in the United States at the weekend. It's a symbol of pride here, a tour company rep tells us and it's certainly a sign of grand ambition. The airline has another 57 on order.
* Grant Bradley is travelling courtesy of Emirates
