Emirates’s super jumbo future

A major part of Emirates’ business is flights to “an increasingly greener” Europe, particularly the UK, which has just killed off – probably for the foreseeable future – additional runways at Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted.

Before much longer, EK, to grow its business into the UK, will require many more A380s.

Emirates also wants more destinations in Europe so it was really of no surprise that the order was announced at the Berlin Air Show and the signing witnessed by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, EK Chairman and CEO Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum and Airbus President and CEO Tom Enders.

Chancellor Merkel wants more good news for German workers and EK wants to fly to Berlin and be able to charge market rate fares.
Sheikh Ahmed made the point that “with the A380 we operate an aircraft that is partly assembled in Germany and that we deploy worldwide as ambassador of European high level engineering. At the same time we are very proud about the fact that our investment of more than US$32 billion for already delivered or ordered Airbus aircraft has substantially helped to create and support many German jobs at Airbus and in the entire German economy.”

Sheikh Ahmed added that the airline looked forward to serving Berlin.

And it will become increasingly difficult for governments to refuse the flagship of Europe – the A380 – to land at their city.

EK took delivery of its 10th A380 at the Berlin Air Show and currently serves London Heathrow, Toronto, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Jeddah, Bangkok, Seoul Incheon, Sydney and Auckland with the aircraft.

It plans to start A380 services from Dubai to Beijing on Aug. 1 and to Manchester on Sept. 1 and will restore A380 services on its Dubai-New York JFK route in October.

But well beyond those plans is EK President Tim Clark’s plans for super mass travel with an all economy 800-seat A380 operating on routes such as Stansted, Colombo and Adelaide touted a few years back.

While Adelaide may no longer be the end destination, perhaps Avalon or Cairns. The thrust of the concept was ultra low cost long range travel.

Recently, Clark talked about a better economy class and this may well figure on what would be EK’s standard operations with the 800-seat A380 having a traditional economy layout.

From an environmental point of view, this machine would be the ultimate green machine and EK knows the way the winds are blowing in the corridors of power in Europe. Green rules and greener wins.

Confidence to place such a massive order comes from the incredible net income of AED4.2 billion ($1.35 billion) recorded by Emirates for its fiscal year 2010 ended March 31, a substantial increase over a AED1.49 billion profit in 2008-09, marking its 22nd consecutive profitable year despite what it described as “a year fraught with worldwide market instability and economic uncertainty.”

Over the past 18 months, when most airlines hemorrhaged red ink and even Dubai itself faced financial problems, Emirates continued to soar as it continued with a deliberate policy of growing the airline and offering some of the world’s fastest connections through what is arguably one of the best airports.

The result has shaken the industry – not even the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression has been able to stop the Emirates phenomenon

During the FY2009-10 the airline took delivery of 15 aircraft comprising four A380s, 10 777-300ERs and one 777F and carried 21% more passengers year-over-year.

At the end of the financial year its fleet stood at 142 aircraft and it is the world’s largest operator of 777s with 78 and at the time of the results announcement had 146 aircraft on order valued at more than US$48 billion.