Well Technically the Middle East isn't the greatest area, it's good yes, maybe the second best for new players(note new players, Europe is perfect for the big players as they can dominate routes easy) but Asia is definitely the best. Still an extremely low population for the number of airports it owns, on top of that there are still airports there relatively untouched. Plus you can access almost any airport save for South America without needing a Connie due to it's huge spread touching almost every airport. If I hadn't chosen Dubai then Asia would have been my second choice definitely.
