History of civil aviation in the Emirate of Dubai dates back to 1930's, when Late Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum, O.B.E and T. Hickinbotham, Captain, Political Agent, Bahrain for His Majesty's Government signed the Dubai Commercial Air Agreement in July 1937. This was the foundation stone for the present "open skies" policy of the Government of Dubai. The unique feature of this agreement is that; it had no restriction on the frequency, thus espousing a liberal framework for traffic rights. This can be viewed as the first "open skies" agreement for commercial civil aviation. 

Since then, the aviation industry has grown to its present status to be amongst the best aviation industries in the world.