Originally Posted by
SMT Member
The sole reason for the existence of ME3 is cheap and cheerful long-haul flights between the US/EU and Asia/Africa/AUSNZ.
With AUSNZ keeping the borders shut into 2021, and the appetite for Americans and Europeans to take vacations in Asia and Africa vastly subdued in the same timeframe, their entire businessmodel is in the ****ter.
My experience over 25+ years transiting through DXB/AED is that a significant majority of pax on EK and EY are migrant workers and small-scale traders from South and South East Asia (and to a lesser extent Africa) commuting to and from work in the ME. Observationally, long haul tourists seem to make up probably only 10 - 15% of pax load once east / south of DXB. Business travellers fill the front cabin, with ME royalty (and associated parasites) in 1st class.
Since ME citizens are highly unlikely to want to do the jobs currently serviced by Indian/Bangladeshi/Philippino/Thai migrant workers, I suspect that a core part of the ME3's business will be secure once we are past the 'crisis' phase of the pandemic and into the 'management' phase. Certainly not enough to sustain the entire fleet, but probably enough to keep at least one of EK/EY alive.