The world's fastest-growing airline -- and one of the most extravagant -- began nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Dubai this week, and tonight it will throw one of the more lavish Hollywood parties of the season.
Despite global economic turmoil, Emirates Airline, based in the hyper-developing Persian Gulf city of Dubai, is expected to spend more than $3 million for the bash at the Kodak Theatre, hosted by Hilary Swank and featuring an hourlong concert by Ricky Martin. A four-course dinner is being prepared by Wolfgang Puck.
The start of flights to Los Angeles International Airport is the latest link in a growing Dubai connection that has included an investment fund controlled by Dubai's ruling family taking a 45% stake in Eli Broad's multibillion-dollar Grand Avenue project in downtown Los Angeles.
A Dubai firm also now owns Newport Beach-based John Laing Homes, which was the nation's second-largest privately held home builder when it was acquired in 2006. Dubai investors have been quietly buying into Southland projects since a political firestorm two years ago killed a Dubai-based company's plans to operate some of the United States' largest seaports.
More recently, Dubai has been courting Hollywood in a big way. DreamWorks Animation SKG Inc. is helping build the world's largest entertainment complex in Dubai, a 107-square-mile play zone that will include 40 theme parks and 50 hotels.
It would be more than twice the size of Disney World in Florida and would involve park designers from Universal Studios and Six Flags Inc.
Last weekend, the airline was a major sponsor of the Breeders' Cup at Santa Anita, where three horses owned by the ruling family won races. The horses arrived at LAX in a private Boeing 747 jumbo jet that has 20 specially built stalls.
On Tuesday, a Bush administration official told business leaders in the oil-rich gulf region that the battered U.S. economy was open to more investment by government-owned funds and other investors.
Speaking at the Dubai Financial Center during a five-country tour of the region, Deputy Treasury Secretary Robert Kimmitt said he was meeting with investment fund managers, companies and other financial institutions to promote the U.S. as an investment destination, the Associated Press reported.
Since the port controversy in 2006, "much has changed, and changed for the good," Kimmitt said.
