Robert Menendez is campaigning to keep his U.S. Senate seat by running a quite disingenuous television advertisement. It shows him walking around the New Jersey docks, claiming to have led the charge on preventing the oversight of American ports from falling into foreign hands. He claims that President Bush “doesn’t get it” when it comes to security.

He’s talking, of course, about the proposed sale to a company called Dubai Ports World of British firm Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation, which currently operates many American ports. It’s not an honest ad, because in truth a “foreign” firm already operates many American ports, and because Mr. Menendez knows full well that the management of the ports has nothing to do with security, which is run by the U.S. Coast Guard, Port Authority, and numerous other agencies.

Mr. Menendez is engaging in profiling, if truth be known. The reality is that many Americans were upset to think that an Arab country would be managing our docks and shipping, at a time when that particular commercial avenue appears to be especially vulnerable. Because two of the September 11th hijackers came from the United Arab Emirates, and because some of the money used in that horrific attack came from a Dubai-based bank, the UAE was aligned in many minds with the “evil-doers.”

For the citizens of the UAE, this is almost unimaginable. According to the senior vice president of the Dubaibased airline Emirates, Nigel Page, the people in the UAE were shocked and saddened by this turn of events, because they have always considered themselves pro-Western, and especially friends of America.

The UAE is one of the few staunch allies America has in the Middle East, but only its emergence as a commercial hotspot that has brought it into the American consciousness. There has been a veritable blitz of publicity in the past year has hailed the dazzling hotels being built in Dubai, the enclosed ski mountain, the exotic souks and the enormous luxury malls. How funny, really, that a country “arrives” in America only when it becomes a shopping Mecca — excuse the expression. In other words, nothing overcomes racial prejudices better than the prospect of a great shopping opportunity. (This may be the part that Mr. Menendez doesn’t get.)

This is great news to Mr. Page.He has been in America for a couple of years, and has been with Emirates since 1993. Previously he was in Dubai with British Airways. He has the mission of building Emirates’ business in America, and he is doing some press interviews to announce that starting in October Emirates will be flying nonstop to Hamburg from JFK airport in New York. This flight is in addition to the company’s existing two nonstops daily to Dubai. (That compares with an astonishing 13 daily non-stops from Dubai to Britain.)

This is not riveting news, except that this is an airline, and an Arab-owned enterprise, that is breaking into the American market. Despite both those hurdles, the company looks likely to succeed.

To be a prosperous airline in America normally requires hiring especially brilliant bankruptcy lawyers, exclusively serving some unloved destination such as Buffalo or dressing your employees in hotpants. (Apologies to JetBlue, which seems to have hit a truly innovative approach: good service to a popular destination.) The thought that a major international airline could promote high class service, spend lavishly on new state-ofthe-art equipment, and be consistently profitable is truly out-of-the-box.

That, however, is the case with Emirates, the eighth largest international airline, which is owned and run by the royal family of Dubai.The company has 18,500 (non-union) employees, and it is consistently profitable, according to Mr. Page. Last year Emirates made $674 million.In fact, he says the company has been profitable in each year since its founding in 1985, except for the second year when management took aggressive start-up related write-offs.

One of the challenges for the company, we would have thought, was attracting good employees. Not at all, according to Mr. Page. The Emirates have a wonderful reputation in Europe, he says, and the rewards of living in Dubai are many. The company’s salaries are commensurate with those in Britain, there is no income tax, health care benefits are good, and housing is provided for senior management.

Surely this is a tough posting for women, no? Not in the least, apparently.Women dress in bikinis on the beach, are allowed to drive, and enjoy a fairly normal lifestyle, according to Mr. Page. Rather surprisingly, Emirates has several senior vice presidents who are women.

Mr. Page attributes the country’s openness with the management style of the ruling family. The rulers make themselves available to their countrymen in large open meetings, at which ordinary citizens are allowed to raise issues and problems and suggest policy. He credits the royal family with having a commonsense approach to governance, which has led to, among other things, a lessening reliance on oil revenues.

The buildup of Dubai as a major banking and shipping center has been helped by its location halfway between East and West. The government also functions with relatively little red tape, has implemented excellent communications and transportation networks, and is rapidly improving the country’s educational and medical facilities.

Although Americans are becoming more familiar with this tiny nation, it still may be tough to entice them into flying on an Arab airline. The company offers lots of enticements, such as 600 channel audio/visual programs in all three cabins. It is hoping to establish operations at six or seven points in North America, possibly offering one day nonstop flights to Dubai from the West Coast.

With expansion here and elsewhere on the agenda, the company is continuing to build its fleet. It now has 94 airplanes; by 2010 it plans on having 150 in service, including a large number of the huge new Airbus A380s, which can carry 550 passengers long distances.

Will superior service overcome prejudice such as that Mr. Menendez is hoping to exploit? Mr. Page says, “The toughest thing is to get them to try it once. We have an exceptional number of repeat customers.”

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