Sharjah Airport has expanded its international airline network with the addition of Indian carrier SpiceJet, strengthening air connectivity between the UAE and India and reinforcing the emirate’s position as a growing regional aviation hub.

The Sharjah Airport Authority (SAA) announced the launch of the new scheduled service connecting Ahmedabad Airport with Sharjah International Airport, a move aimed at supporting business travel, tourism and family visits between the two countries, a WAM report said.

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According to the announced schedule, flights commenced on Thursday, February 5, operating five times per week using Boeing 737 aircraft. The new service is expected to meet rising travel demand while offering passengers greater flexibility and convenience between Gujarat and the UAE.

Expanding links with a key market

The addition of Ahmedabad to Sharjah Airport’s destination network forms part of the airport’s broader strategy to expand its global presence and attract additional international carriers. India remains one of Sharjah Airport’s most significant source markets for both inbound and outbound travellers, supported by strong economic ties and a large expatriate population.

Ali Salim Al Midfa, chairman of Sharjah Airport Authority, welcomed the launch of the new SpiceJet flights, noting that the route aligns with the Authority’s efforts to enhance connectivity and passenger choice.

“The addition of this route forms part of the Authority’s ongoing efforts to enhance the passenger experience through a wider range of travel options and highly efficient operational services,” Al Midfa said.

He highlighted that Sharjah Airport continues to invest in developing its facilities and smart services to ensure seamless procedures and smooth passenger movement, helping to maintain high levels of traveller satisfaction while keeping pace with steady passenger growth.

Focus on partnerships and growth

Al Midfa further noted that the Authority remains committed to building long-term strategic partnerships with airline partners, supporting network expansion and opening new avenues for cooperation.

“This approach reflects the airport’s vision to consolidate its position as a leading regional travel hub, combining service excellence, operational efficiency, and an integrated passenger experience,” he said.

The launch comes as Sharjah Airport continues to expand its route network, with several new destinations recently added, including Krabi, Munich, Prague, Warsaw Modlin, Vienna, Addis Ababa and Sochi. Direct flights to London are also scheduled to commence in March 2026.

SpiceJet cites strong demand

Debojo Maharshi, chief business officer at SpiceJet, said the Ahmedabad–Sharjah service represents a significant addition to the airline’s international network.

“The launch of our Ahmedabad-Sharjah service is a meaningful addition to SpiceJet’s international network and reflects the strong and growing travel demand between India and the UAE,” Maharshi said.

“Sharjah has long been an important destination for Indian travellers, whether for work, tourism or visiting family, and this new service will offer them a reliable and convenient travel option,” he added, noting that the airline looks forward to working closely with Sharjah Airport Authority to further strengthen its regional presence.

During 2025, Sharjah Airport expanded its network to more than 100 global destinations, with four new international airlines joining its portfolio. The airport also introduced additional services and operational enhancements, contributing to faster passenger processing and reduced waiting times.

Sharjah Airport Authority reaffirmed its commitment to working closely with airline partners to continue developing its network and delivering a seamless, efficient and distinguished travel experience for all passengers.

The AI opportunity is vast and could equate to $4.68tn to the Middle East’s GDP by the year 2035, according to PwC. Yet, while the potential of AI is significant, short-term returns are less obvious. BCG finds that only five per cent of companies are “AI future-built”, while 60 per cent report minimal revenue and cost gains despite existing investments.

The gap lies not just in the technology, but in the foundations needed to support it – alignment, data, workflows, and leadership. As 2026 unfolds, business leaders need to ask a new set of questions to further unlock the UAE’s AI potential. Ones that look beyond adoption and address the structures required to enable sustainable, explainable, organisation-wide AI value creation.

Are we prepared to realise the potential of AI?

It is tempting to simply automate existing processes. But if the data and workflow were flawed to begin with, automation only increases the speed and scale of inefficiency.

AI is now integrated into leading business management systems. By embedding agentic workflows, conversational intelligence, and natural-language search within these platforms, organisations can automate reconciliations, identify exceptions, speed up approvals, and guide next steps without increasing complexity. These advantages multiply when teams work from unified data, processes, and governance frameworks.

Without a connected system—shared data, clear oversight, and consistent adoption—these benefits cannot scale. Instead, organisations risk increased busywork rather than meaningful operational impact. This underscores a critical point: many so-called ‘productivity measures’ reward activity, not necessarily impact. So before applying AI to an outdated legacy system, explore its purpose: Why is our process structured this way? How would it differ if we were starting from scratch today?

Without shedding legacy assumptions and redesigning around outcomes around a single source of truth, automation risks accelerating inefficiency rather than amplifying value.

How can we trust the decisions AI is supporting?

The shift toward AI-enabled operations exposes a long-standing issue: fragmented data. Many organisations hold vast amounts of information, but only a portion is consistent, governed, and accessible enough to support intelligent systems. And if a system cannot be explained, it should not be deployed because responsible AI is always explainable. The good news is that the ‘garbage in, garbage out’ phenomenon is now widely recognised by business leaders.

The task for businesses now is to centralise real-time data from across the organisation, including finance, operations, HR and supply chain, and make it connected and accessible across departments.

Seeing information presented in a dashboard specific to an employee’s role and responsibilities and being able to zoom in and out and question points of concern allows leaders to make decisions based on one source of truth, rather than instinct. And when more employees can access the same consistent data, organisations gain more eyes on possible risks and unlock more opportunities to surface useful insights.

What is our plan for shadow AI tools?

Employees are already using AI tools, whether business leaders approve of them or not. On one hand, this demonstrates a healthy appetite for AI and the potential for productivity gains. On the other hand, it raises serious questions around data governance, security, and compliance when organisational data is shared beyond the systems of the business.

Leaders should focus on providing secure, governed ways for employees to harness AI in alignment with organisational policy. Solutions that give employees a flexible and scalable way to connect their own AI to a business management system help ensure outputs are informed by business-approved data and remain fully compliant. This approach allows leaders to take back control of AI interactions without stifling the innovation already happening across the workforce.

How will our people interact with AI in 2026?

The way employees work with systems is changing rapidly. Conversational intelligence, agentic workflows, and natural-language search are becoming part and parcel of day-to-day operations.

Instead of navigating dashboards or clicking through menus, employees will increasingly interact with systems through conversational queries (such as “show me the revenue from the last two quarters”) or engage with autonomous agents that can execute complex multi-step workflows at the direction of a human user. AI will be embedded into the applications that people use every day, not requiring specialised interfaces or technical knowledge to extract value.

This shift requires leaders to rethink skills, governance, and the design of employee experiences. Advanced ERP systems put AI to work for business leaders by making it a natural extension of the way the business already operates.

What skills will matter when everyone is augmented by AI?

Reskilling initiatives focused solely on technical competencies will not suffice. The competitive advantage in an AI-augmented workplace belongs not just to those who can operate the technology, but to those who can interpret, challenge, and contextualise its outputs.

As intelligent tools expand our capabilities, business leaders should put a premium on critical reasoning and creative synthesis and ensure that learning and development plans evolve to strengthen these irreplaceable competencies.

In 2026, the organisations that will capture the true value of AI are not those that simply deploy more tools, but those that rethink the foundations on which those tools operate.

Sustainable impact comes from:

• Redesigning workflows around outcomes
• Establishing a single trusted source of data
• Enabling secure and governed use of emerging AI capabilities

Business leaders must also anticipate how employees will interact with systems in a more conversational, agent-driven environment.

Youssef Halawi is the regional director, Oracle NetSuite.

Read: Oracle pledges $14bn investment in Saudi Arabia

Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR) is deepening its long-term growth partnership between Asia and the Middle East as it advances its global expansion strategy, positioning the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey (MENAT) region as a central engine for scale, connectivity and international growth.

The strategy leverages the Middle East’s established strengths, including world-class infrastructure, global aviation connectivity, pro-investment frameworks and sustained tourism demand, to support MHR’s expansion into high-potential gateway cities and leisure destinations across international markets.

Over the past decade, the Middle East has emerged as one of the world’s most dynamic travel hubs. Dubai welcomed 18.72 million international overnight visitors in 2024 and recorded 15.70 million overnight visitors between January and October 2025, representing 5 per cent year-on-year growth. The emirate’s hospitality sector continues to operate at scale, with more than 152,000 hotel rooms across 820 establishments, underpinned by strong occupancy and rate performance.

Investor confidence across the region remains robust. According to Lodging Econometrics, more than 84,000 hotel rooms were under construction across the Middle East in Q1 2025, with a further 47,000 rooms scheduled to begin construction within the next 12 months, underscoring long-term confidence in the region’s tourism fundamentals.

MHR’s leadership views MENAT not only as a high-growth market, but also as a strategic launchpad for global scale—connecting international travellers, corporate clients and owners—while deploying a disciplined and proven operating and brand model across strategic destinations worldwide.

“Millennium Hotels and Resorts has always been built with a long-term mindset, and I have a vision to grow to 500 hotels globally. The Middle East has shown what can be achieved with the right partners, the right infrastructure and a shared commitment to quality. We want to build on that success and replicate it across other strategic markets by connecting global travellers, businesses and communities through destinations that matter,” said Kwek Leng Beng, executive chairman of Millennium Hotels and Resorts (MHR) and executive chairman of Hong Leong Group Singapore.

Ali Hamad Lakhraim Alzaabi, chairman of Millennium & Copthorne – MENAT, added: “The Middle East today is a destination of choice and a global hub for leisure, business, culture and major events. Our region’s strength is not only demand, but also execution: the ability to deliver at scale, to host the world, and to create a consistent, high-quality guest experience. The partnership with Chairman Kwek reflects a shared belief in long-term value creation and in building platforms that endure.”

Chaker Zeraiki, president of Millennium Hotels and Resorts – MENAT, said: “Our objective is to translate the region’s proven formula connectivity, infrastructure, owner confidence and operational excellence into a scalable growth platform for MHR. By leveraging MENAT as a hub and a benchmark for delivery, we can accelerate our expansion into strategic gateway cities and leisure destinations; while ensuring we remain disciplined on brand standards and guest experience.”

MHR’s MENAT growth strategy aligns closely with the region’s broader transformation agenda, supported by mega events and destination-led investment. Saudi Arabia, for example, has raised its tourism ambition to 150 million visitors by 2030 and is preparing to host major global events including Expo 2030, the FIFA World Cup 2034 and the Esports World Cup, further strengthening international visibility and travel flows across the region.

The group’s expansion model remains anchored in disciplined brand stewardship, strong owner relationships and cultural fluency, while maintaining global standards—an approach that has underpinned MHR’s scale-up across MENAT and will continue to guide its next phase of global growth.

Read: MENA hospitality market value to reach $487bn by 2032, reveals data

Bitcoin bounced from a 16-month low on Friday after testing the key $60,000 level, as a global rout in technology stocks that washed out risky bets across asset classes showed tentative signs of easing.

The world’s largest cryptocurrency BTC was last up 3.3 per cent to $65,198.20, clawing back its losses after having slid 5 per cent to hit a low of $60,008.52 earlier in the session.

Still, bitcoin remains pinned near its weakest level since October 2024, a month before Donald Trump won the US presidential election, having signalled his intention to support crypto on the campaign trail.

“Bitcoin‘s been going down since October (2025), maybe you could ask if it was the canary in the coalmine, or a coincidence,” said Chris Weston, head of research at brokerage Pepperstone in Melbourne.

“A lot of these big crowded positions are being unwound very, very quickly.”

Ether was last up nearly 4 per cent at $1,919.37, having similarly slid close to a 10-month low of $1,751.94 earlier in the session.

The global crypto market has lost some $2tr in value since hitting a peak of $4.379tr in early October, CoinGecko data showed, with more than $1tr wiped out over the past month alone.

Bitcoin was on track to shed 15 per cent for the week, taking its losses for the year so far to 26 per cent. Meanwhile, ether was headed for a weekly decline of 16 per cent, with losses of nearly 36 per cent so far this year.

Sentiment on crypto had been affected by the latest selling in precious metals and stocks. Gold and silver, for instance, have become more volatile as a result of leveraged buying and speculative flows.

But some of those moves retraced on Friday as selling pressure abated.

Bitcoin‘s fortunes have been tied to the broader tech sector for some time. The price tended to rise, particularly on the back of investor enthusiasm over artificial intelligence.

“Bitcoin drifting back toward $60,000 is not crypto dying, it is the bill coming due for Treasuries and funds that treated bitcoin as a one-way asset without real risk controls, just as we have seen sharp corrections in self-proclaimed safe-haven assets like gold and silver when leverage and narrative ran ahead of reality,” said Joshua Chu, co-chair of the Hong Kong Web3 Association.

“Those who bet too big, borrowed too much or assumed prices only go up are now finding out the hard way what real market volatility and risk management look like.”

To be sure, cryptocurrencies have struggled for months since a record crash last October sent bitcoin tumbling from a peak.

That has resulted in investor sentiment cooling off on digital assets.

Analysts from Deutsche Bank said in a note that US spot bitcoin ETFs witnessed outflows of more than $3bn in January, following outflows of about $2bn and $7bn in December and November, respectively.

Read: Bitcoin breaks key support, slips below $70,000

The Saudi Ministry of Hajj and Umrah announced that visa issuance for the 2026 Hajj season (1447 AH) will begin on Sunday, February 8, corresponding to Sha’ban 20.

The early launch is part of an accelerated timeline designed to enhance service readiness and ensure the comfort of pilgrims, approximately four months ahead of the rituals.

Read more-Hajj 2026: How pilgrims can choose their preferred service packages

Officials emphasised that the initiative aligns with the kingdom’s Vision 2030, aiming to modernize and streamline the Hajj experience, a Saudi Gazette report said.

Full services secured for pilgrims

The ministry confirmed that contracts covering 100 per cent of services at the holy sites for pilgrims arriving from abroad have been finalised. All accommodation contracts in Makkah have also been completed through the Nusk platform. So far, 750,000 pilgrims have registered, with packages booked for 30,000 pilgrims directly from their home countries.

“Issuing visas at this stage reflects a proactive planning approach,” the ministry said. “It contributes to a more organised experience and improves service efficiency for millions of pilgrims from around the world.”

Infrastructure and coordination in place

In addition, about 485 camps have been allocated for international pilgrims, and 73 Hajj affairs offices have completed their basic contractual arrangements. Coordination continues with offices and service providers both inside and outside the kingdom to ensure smooth operations.

The initiative is part of a comprehensive organisational and technical strategy, which includes service contracts at holy sites, approval of accommodation and transportation agreements, and preparation of camps to prevent challenges during the season.

Saudi Arabia continues to prioritise pilgrims’ comfort and safety while supporting the kingdom’s broader modernisation goals.