Service type: Market Research & Competitive Intelligence
Overview
An international aviation services company exploring expansion into Gulf and Middle East markets engaged GIG to conduct a comparative market assessment across Iraq and Oman.
The client needed a clear-eyed analysis of market size, competitive dynamics, regulatory pathways and the practical realities of operating in two markets with very different risk profiles before committing to a capital-intensive regional entry strategy.
The Challenge
Iraq and Oman sit at opposite ends of the operational risk spectrum for foreign aviation services firms, but both present significant information challenges.
Iraq's aviation sector has undergone rapid expansion following the post-ISIS stabilisation period, with new routes, airport upgrades, and growing passenger volumes creating genuine commercial opportunity — but the operating environment remains complex, with multiple government bodies, political interference in procurement, and significant counterparty risk.
Standard market data for the Iraqi aviation sector is unreliable, and the gap between headline opportunity and operational reality is wide.
Oman's Civil Aviation Authority operates a more structured regulatory environment, but the market is contested, with existing regional players holding entrenched positions and close relationships with government procurement decision-makers.
Understanding the real competitive landscape — who holds which contracts, what the renewal dynamics look like, and where genuine entry points exist — required intelligence beyond publicly available information.
What We Did
GIG conducted parallel research tracks in both markets, producing a comparative assessment structured around four dimensions for each: market size and growth trajectory, regulatory and licensing environment, competitive landscape, and operational risk.
For Iraq, GIG combined desk research on the Civil Aviation Authority's published data with primary source interviews with aviation sector operators, government officials involved in airport concession management, and international firms already active in the market.
The research identified the specific procurement cycles most relevant to the client's service lines, the political dynamics shaping airport operator relationships in both Baghdad and the Kurdish Region, and the due diligence requirements for any prospective local partnership.
For Oman, GIG mapped the competitive landscape through primary source enquiries with industry contacts and regulatory officials, identifying the key incumbents, their contract positions, and the relationship dynamics that would shape any competitive tender.
The comparative analysis provided a structured recommendation on sequencing — which market to prioritise, what entry mechanism to pursue in each, and what the realistic commercial timeline looked like given the regulatory and competitive conditions.
Outcome
The client used the assessment to make a board-level decision on regional entry sequencing, prioritising Oman as the first-entry market given the more predictable regulatory environment, while developing a longer-term Iraq strategy calibrated to the procurement cycle intelligence GIG had identified. GIG was retained to provide ongoing monitoring of the relevant tender processes in both markets.
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