POWER LETTERS 2020

2019 will go down as a year of global tradewars and rising political uncertainty. What will 2020 bring?

For Emirates, 2019 has been a year of strategic recalibration to build firm foundations for the future in an increasingly volatile business environment.

At the beginning of the year, we were hit by the news that Airbus would end the A380 programme. As our brand flagship and a differentiator for Emirates, the A380 will remain a pillar in our fleet well into the 2030s, and we will continue to invest in the best onboard products and services for our customers. Nevertheless, this forced us to review our network and fleet with a new set of parameters. We took stock of what our network will look like in the next 5-10 years, and what our fleet composition should be to support that network.

At the Dubai Airshow, we announced firm aircraft commitments for 50 A350-900 XWB aircraft and a full purchase agreement for 30 Boeing 787-9 aircraft. Both of these aircraft types are fuel efficient, and will provide us with flexibility in terms of range and payload capacity, especially for our medium and long haul operations. The A350 and Boeing 787 will also complement our existing Boeing 777 and A380 fleet, providing us with greater seat spread to serve a range of destinations that we could not access in the past, and cater to seasonal and opportunistic demand as we develop our global route network.

On the network side, our cornerstone partnership with fly dubai continues to generate immense value for both sides, and most importantly, benefits our customers. In the coming year, we will continue to ramp up our strategic partnership when it comes to schedule coordination and enhanced connectivity, competitive pricing, network planning and seamless journeys at DXB, in addition to extracting more benefits for customers through our frequent flyer programme.