Emirates restores 93% of pre-conflict network, banks on India demand

Emirates’ Network and Passenger Recovery

Emirates has restored 96% of its pre-conflict network, but passenger traffic remains at 93% of earlier levels, with corporate travel among the segments taking longer to recover, Essa Sulaiman Ahmad, the airline’s senior vice-president for West Asia and Indian Ocean, said.

The airline is bringing its Airbus A380 to Delhi from October 25, as it upgrades its cabin product in India.

The airline is currently operating flights to 144 destinations globally, compared with around 150 before the conflict began on February 28, Ahmad said. While operations have recovered substantially, passenger demand, particularly corporate travel, continues to be affected by uncertainty and travel advisories.

The airline introduced greater flexibility in bookings to reassure customers during the disruption, Ahmad said, adding that he personally contacted travel-trade partners during the first five to six days of the conflict to reassure them and understand their requirements.

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“We started giving more flexibility to doing our bookings,” he said, adding that the aim was to ensure passengers did not suffer if they had to cancel or change travel plans for operational reasons. Recovery has, however, been uneven across passenger segments.

Ahmad said corporate travellers were slower to return because company travel advisories and restrictions under employee insurance policies continued to affect travel decisions, even when businesses wanted to resume normal operations.

“Corporate clients were the last to kind of recover,” he said, while adding that passenger loads were improving as travellers regained confidence in the airline’s operations.

The airline will continue operating four daily flights to the capital, with one service upgraded to the A380 and the remaining three operated by retrofitted Boeing 777 aircraft.

“For us, the maturity of the market is there. The demand is extremely high. So definitely, it’s always the right time to put the A380,” Ahmad said, explaining the rationale behind the deployment.

Delhi will become Emirates’ third A380 destination in India, after Mumbai and Bengaluru. The move comes as the airline seeks to expand its premium offering and strengthen connectivity through Dubai, which connects passengers to around 140 destinations across its network.

“We have over 92 million Indian customers that we have brought in and out of India in the past 41 years,” Ahmad said, highlighting the importance of the Indian market to the Dubai-based carrier.

Ahmad said the addition of premium economy would mean fewer economy-class seats on the upgraded aircraft, although the overall seat capacity would remain broadly comparable.

“Because we’ve added additional premium economy or premium offering, we will have less economy class seats,” he said.

The premium economy cabin has also received further enhancements, including an electric divider, wireless charging and a cocktail table.

As per Ahmad, the airline has completed retrofits on around 104 aircraft out of a programme covering 219 aircraft. This includes 53 A380s and nearly 60 Boeing 777s with upgraded interiors, while new aircraft deliveries are also being configured with the enhanced product.

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Speaking about increasing bilaterals, Ahmad said that the airline continued to see strong demand from India, but any increase in flights would depend on government-to-government decisions on air service entitlements.

“As an airline, we see that there is demand, and all our studies indicate that there is huge demand for India,” he said.