Emirates Announces Large Scale Growth Plans for 2009

[Irops]

Full text of a EK press release today
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Emirates Airline today unveiled plans to grow the number of flights across its network by 14 per cent in 2009.

This year, the Dubai based carrier will add 18 new passenger aircraft to its fleet, increasing seating capacity by 14 per cent and enabling it to start new routes as well as increase frequencies on many existing routes. It will also expand cargo capacity by 17 per cent.

The additional frequencies will afford passengers a greater choice of flights, more frequent connections with their target markets and shorter, more convenient connection times.

Emirates currently has a fleet of 129 wide-bodied aircraft. By the end of the 2008-09 financial year (ending 31st March 2009), that figure will stand at 132, including four superjumbo Airbus A380s. The carrier will welcome a further seven A380s in fiscal year 2009-10 (ending 31st March 2010), as well as 10 Boeing 777-300ER, one 777-200LR and one Boeing 777 freighter.

HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group, said: "The next year is not going to be an easy ride for the airline industry. Emirates has prepared the best we can for the challenges we foresee, but we also see it as a time of opportunity. 2009, with our significant capacity increase, will be a year of consolidation for us, with fewer new routes launched than in previous years.

"Instead, we will concentrate on strengthening our presence on routes where there is a greater demand from our customers. All of our new capacity will be deployed in markets where we see growth potential, particularly Africa and the Middle East."

Indeed, Emirates' fastest growing markets are Africa and the Middle East, recording 17 and six per cent growth respectively in the last 12 months. To this end, Emirates recently added a second daily flight to Lagos.

It will also introduce services from Dubai to Durban, South Africa on 1st October 2009. The route will be served by a two-class, 278-seat Airbus A330-200 which can carry up to 14 tonnes of cargo into the port city.

Last month, Emirates announced a vast Middle East expansion plan taking the number of seats in the region to 50,000 on 180 flights a week. Additional services to Amman, Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait and Damascus were started recently.

Emirates has added 32 weekly flights to its existing Indian services since November. The enhanced capacity means customers now have a choice of 163 weekly flights into 10 gateways in the country.

As new aircraft come online, both Los Angeles and San Francisco – Emirates' newest routes, launched in October and December – will go from thrice weekly to daily from May. The extra services will add more than 2,000 seats a week between the US west coast and Dubai, which is more than a 100 per cent increase on the current 1,600 seats.

There is increased capacity to Australia with additional daily flights to Brisbane and Melbourne, taking the total number of flights a week to 63 effective 1st February. Later this year, a third daily service to Sydney will be added. On 1st February, Emirates became the first carrier to operate commercial A380 flights into New Zealand with the launch of its Dubai-Sydney-Auckland service. Operated by a 489-seat Airbus A380 three times a week, it will go daily from 1st May.

Plans are also afoot to deploy superjumbos on Dubai–Seoul and Dubai–Singapore services in November and December respectively.

The first A380 flight between Dubai and Seoul's Incheon International Airport will depart in November, while the Singapore service will start in December and initially run four times weekly.

In Europe, Emirates has already embarked on an expansion programme. In recent months it has commenced double daily flights into Milan, increased Istanbul services to 11 flights a week, increased services on the Larnaca-Malta route to seven times weekly and Nice flights to five times weekly. Second daily services into Moscow and Athens are also planned for March.

In total, the additional capacity will see more than 8,635 seats and around 600 tonnes of cargo capacity added to the Emirates fleet.

"Emirates has recorded an annual growth rate of 20 per cent over the last five years," reported HH Sheikh Ahmed. "In the last two years alone, we have launched 11 new passenger and three cargo-only routes. In 2007, with the launch of its Dubai–Sao Paulo service, we became the first – and only – carrier to fly to six continents non-stop from a single hub."

[bmc]

Good for them. Nice to see some good news in this industry.

[slowstream]

Good for them, however it sure is in stark contrast to the other articles about the tough times in Dubai!


Is it a case of putting on a brave face or being positive to offset the recent bad press about Dubai's situation, being the same as the rest of the worlds economic challenges?

This might warrant further research.

Any other thoughts?

[fingersmac]

Emirates is connecting the world through Dubai. It's like one giant hub with spokes stretching all over the world. Australasia to Europe, connect through Dubai. Asia to Europe, connect through Dubai. Africa to Asia, connect through Dubai. Dubai is not necessarily the end destination for many of their travelers.

[bmc]

Emirates is connecting the world through Dubai. It's like one giant hub with spokes stretching all over the world. Australasia to Europe, connect through Dubai. Asia to Europe, connect through Dubai. Africa to Asia, connect through Dubai. Dubai is not necessarily the end destination for many of their travelers.

True. With demand weakening in Europe and Asia, where's the traffic coming from? SQ is reducing their fleet. AF ran a flight from TYO to CDG last week with 40 people on it. The nonstops between Europe and Asia are feeling the pinch. Routing through the gulf, adding more flying and a connection is going to grow the market?

[slowstream]

Okay, that's fair enough and has merit, but it does not really explain Emirates expansion plans for 09.

I believe typically foreign carriers have never succeeded flying passengers from one nation to another through their home nation when they were not that nations carrier. Am I wrong about this?

It also continues to beg the question which is why if Dubai is in financial trouble, what are they doing?

[RB-211]

I believe typically foreign carriers have never succeeded flying passengers from one nation to another through their home nation when they were not that nations carrier. Am I wrong about this?

I think you will find that there are carriers in Europe and Asia that have successfully made money doing exactly this. EK will be no exception...........

[bmc]

I believe typically foreign carriers have never succeeded flying passengers from one nation to another through their home nation when they were not that nations carrier. Am I wrong about this?

You sure are. The first strong sixth freedom carriers were KLM and SIngapore. Today, lots of carriers depend heavily on sixth freedom flow: Lufthansa, Air France, Iberia, British, Gulf Air, Etihad, Qatar, Emirates. North America to the South Asian Sub Continent, Middle East, Africa has limited service. Most of it is flown as sixth freedom traffic on European carriers. In Asia, Japan, Al Nippon, Cathay, SIngapor, Malaysia are all sixth freedom carriers.

The downside with depending on sixth freedom traffic is that you compete with 3rd and 4th freedom point to point carriers. For example, traffic from London to Delhi can fly nonstop on BA, Air India and I believe Jet Airways. All of the Gulf carriers serve London Delhi over their hubs. The downside for them is, to lure traffic off the nonstops onto a connection and added flying, you have to drop the price to make it worth while. You now have have a reduced price ticket that now flies on two planes and more cost. Ideally, you should as an airline try to carry as much 3rd and 4th freedom traffic. IE, focus on London Dubai market as opposed to London-Delhi.

The downside with focusing too much on sixth freedom traffic is if your capacity if driven by 6th freedom and not 3rd and 4th, you can find your load factors drop when markets shrink and your direct service can't support the capacity. You end up giving away the seats to try and recover some cost.

I hope I wrote that clearly.

[slowstream]

The downside with depending on sixth freedom traffic is that you compete with 3rd and 4th freedom point to point carriers. For example, traffic from London to Delhi can fly nonstop on BA, Air India and I believe Jet Airways. All of the Gulf carriers serve London Delhi over their hubs.

The downside with focusing too much on sixth freedom traffic is if your capacity if driven by 6th freedom and not 3rd and 4th, you can find your load factors drop when markets shrink and your direct service can't support the capacity. You end up giving away the seats to try and recover some cost.

I hope I wrote that clearly.

Thanks for the insights, yeah that's about clear as mud (lol).

I'll re-read and do a little more research about that and see if I can rap my head around that. It's your admitted downside that had me having the belief's about the viability I did.

Thanks again, and thanks for no one jumping down my throat

[bmc]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedoms_of_the_air

pm me if you need more clarification. Happy to explain.

bmc

[palebird]

This is hilarious... it is real simple people...these sand diggers have no other place to go..they are simply going for broke and it will devastate them...Dubai is going broke fast and EK will follow...there won't be any traffic...it is not the apocalypse but you do have to look around and see things for what they are..and these boys are no smarter than anybody else...it was a good idea when times were good and they banked on the times remaining good...times have changed and that requires a major shift in direction...

[complexintentions]

HAHAHAHAHAH spoken like someone who's probably never even visited the Middle East, let alone lived there...

Emirates is a real company. A ruthless, amoral, but by sheer profit standards, extremely successful company. They are already screwing the pilot group as hard as they can using the "global economic crisis" as leverage. This, while Emirates is still on track to be profitable this year. They will fall far short of their lofty profit goals for the year and have to settle for a few hundred million profit instead of the 1.5 billion they were targeting - not bad while most airlines are struggling to tread water and many are folding. They have always made their gains during global downturns, leveraging the failures and misery of others to add to their empire. They're vultures, parasites...and they have made money every year for the last 20.

Dubai is a farce. It isn't broke, it's beyond broke and getting a big bailout from Abu Dhabi. But Dubai is not Emirates.

Don't confuse the two.

[bmc]

EK's large scale growth plans are due to delivery commitments.

Traffic forecasts for the Middle East see a 3.1% growth, down from double digit growth in 2008.