Emirates to take 14 aircraft in next fiscal year
By: Kurt Hofmann (Air Transport World)
Emirates Airline plans to take delivery of 14 new aircraft in its upcoming fiscal year beginning April 1, and retain four others it had planned to remove, owing to strong traffic demand. The carrier operates 15 Airbus A380s, a number that will grow dramatically as deliveries ramp up.
“We [will] start constant delivery of the remaining 75 A380s from September 2011,” Divisional SVP-Commercial Operations Worldwide Richard Vaughan told ATW in Dubai. He said the A380s are still a kind of marketing tool and that passengers will change their schedules to be able to fly on the aircraft. Two of the airline's 14 full flight simulators at its training facility in Dubai are dedicated to the type.
“The machine created a new landscape [for EK],” he observes. Vaughan confirmed that EK has no plans to install a different cabin configuration for high-density routes such as to India.
DXB suffers from capacity problems during peak hours. “It is a challenge for us to get our aircraft out on time,” he said. The strain should be eased somewhat when Concourse 3 is fully operational in 2013. It is dedicated to the A380 and will be capable of handling 25 of them at once. The Dubai government has not decided if and when EK will operate from the new Jebel Ali Airport, which is currently used by cargo airlines.
Commenting on the 2011 outlook, Vaughan said forward bookings are looking good but adds that "the price of fuel could be a problem if it rises to as much as $100 a barrel."
EK carried 27.5 million passengers in the 2009-10 fiscal year, 60% of them changing aircraft in DXB. South America is one of the areas where EK believes there is scope for further expansion, but no definite routes or dates have been announced. It currently serves Sao Paulo Guarulhos. Copenhagen will become EK's 27th European destination when it launches Aug. 1. The city of Basra, Iraq, became its 110th destination Feb. 2. EK will add a tenth daily flight to Australia in October, increasing the number of weekly offered seats Down Under from 22,000 to 25,000 in each direction.
"When we open a new destination in Europe, we need to add capacity in places such as the Far East and Africa to balance the network,” Vaughan explained.