It is that time of year. School is over, summer has seized the country by the throat, Ramadan is on the way … and seemingly half the people in the UAE are headed for an airport.

We at The National did a story this week about a rise in airline bookings this summer — up 10 percent from a year ago.

It is a bit mind-bending to consider a country that empties out for weeks or months at a time. But it happens here, and you notice it on the streets and in the malls.

It really hit home this week; Abu Dhabi suddenly feels like a city big enough to hold 1 million people … but suddenly contains far, far fewer. The place has seemed to go quiet, and it happened over the weekend.

Certainly, many European nations gear down significantly in, say, August — but many of those who have left the big cities of Paris or Berlin or Rome very likely are “vacating” in their home country.

Internal vacations are not a serious option here. It is no more pleasant out of town than in it, and probably worse, because the AC may not be as pervasive, and a cranked up AC is required in the UAE summer.

So instead of driving to the local beach — and most UAE population centers are less than five miles from the Gulf — many residents of the UAE (including the Emiratis) take a flight to somewhere more temperate, and then drive to a beach.

Many expat Muslims living in the UAE want to spend much of Ramadan (which begins next week) with their families back home. So they are leaving.

Many Western expats in the UAE are employed in education, and when summer vacations begins, they tend to go home — for months at a time.

This time of year, Emiratis like seeing countries significantly north of where we are now. Istanbul often is popular (though unrest this year is hurting the market there). London is always a lure. Paris. Munich has recently become very popular for UAE tourists.

This is even with airline prices jacked up. One of those “supply and demand” things.

Later tonight, we will join the stream of people heading for the airport. It’s that time of year.