EK lite, rumour only!
 

Night before last over a beer with a current EK skipper chum and a Flydxb friend, both were of the opinion that this is coming, a quick respray, rebrand and hey presto an instant narrow body fleet.
Crewing issues notwithstanding, what odds would one get if gambling was legal in the Jewel of the ME.

Evens I'd wager.

Not worth a big punt, but with DWC capacity, competition from emerging lowcost markets and cost escalation, reduced loading (how many empty seats?), the feckless vicissitudes of cost sensitive customers, profit erosion combined with a broken spoke on the Hub business model as the creaking wagon wheel disappears down low oil revenue lane, anything is possible.

As a corollary, it would provide a useful pool of crew to feed the long haul fleets without the inherent nervous twitch that 250 hr MPL's provide.

Great way of starting to reduce T+C's in mainline as well.

"start to reduce the T+C's in mainline"!! They've been doing that for the last 10+ years...

I've said for years that this would happen and FZ will be rebranded as some sort of 'Emirates Lite' / 'Emirates Express'... though perhaps 'FlyByNight' might be more appropriate?! ;)

same here. OKC.

how would the seniority list integration be worked out?

Like seniority makes the least bit of difference around here. Non-issue.

You can have a rebranded Flydubaï to " EK Express " without having to merge the seniority list.
It could still be 2 independent pool of pilots and cabin crews with their own terms and conditions...

It's the head-chopped chicken still running around erratically, haemorrhaging ...
Just a matter of time until it drops and gets plucked and finally eaten.

Consider: EK will hardly integrate FlyDubai or put the EK brand on their aircraft. Simply because they already have a hull loss and casualties on their record. No airline buys into that.

Golfish,

Do you remember Value Jet.

Value Jet became AirTran after the everglades crash. It became a very successful low cost. So successful that southwest had to buy them. Therefore, I am sorry, but your theory about a loss hull is not entirely true.

Spanishfly raises an interesting point- if the FlyDubai brand is damaged a rebrand as "Emirates light" might be a good thing to do.

"Simply because they already have a hull loss and casualties on their record. No airline buys into that".

Even though EK had a hull loss as well???

Hull loss
 

There's not so much to talk about hull loss when emirates 777, a perfectly working airplane, was destroyed during a simple go around, one firefighter lost his life for nothing and it was a miracle that everyone else survived.
I would keep my mouth shut if I were you..

So a perfect couple?

More than perfect....

The Max production line is full until 2022 at the very earliest, based on my crude maths.

STC has not ruled out the Max or the Neo in a article in Flight International a couple of weeks ago but he also said it will probably be up to whoever replaces him to bring any narrow body plans to fruition.

I have had the interesting (!) experience of working for both. We always thought that it was bewildering that flydubai was not set up as an 'Emirates Express'. Whatever you may think about EK the training standard in FZ was jaw droppingly awful / worse and tragically the inevitable happened. You would think that the brand would be irrevocably damaged post - Rostov. There are some good people @ the coalface in FZ and for their sake a take over would be a good thing.

Er... Apart from EK having its own incident, didnt EK 'buy into' a strategic partnership deal only a year or so ago with Malaysian Airlines, which suffered two consecutive hull losses in a short span (even if not their fault)??

Apples to pomegranates.

If a code share flight with Lion Air crashes, Lion are the ones who bear the publicity, regardless of the fact you bought the ticket on the Emirates website.

Simply by reading your reactions, it shows how sensitive the matter is, up to the point where some Jackass advises to 'shut up' :ugh::ugh:

I might better have said hull loss WITH casualties, to make a point, by this not leaving the field to the word-watchers to admonish me about the EK hull loss .......

I was simply pointing at a reason for not mixing the brands, even if the idea of whitewashing FY is interesting.

But it seems to touch too many nerves ......