Emirates will shortly start talks with Airbus and Boeing to acquire 120-seat aircraft to launch a network of regional services from its Dubai hub. The carrier is also studying airline alliances, to allow it to decide whether to join a grouping, says Emirates chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum.
Emirates expects to have phased out its Airbus A300/A310s (223/180 seats) by 2003, leaving the 243-seat A330-200, which is replacing the smaller Airbus twins, as the smallest aircraft in the fleet. "We feel strongly that we need such an aircraft [a 120-seater] for the future," says Sheikh Ahmed. Aircraft types under consideration include the Airbus A320 family and the Boeing 737. "We won't go below 120 seats," he says. The number of aircraft is undecided, with service entry unlikely before mid-2001.
Regional route development in the Gulf has been limited to date, with carriers focusing on medium and long-haul network development. As a first move to establishing a regional network, Emirates recently received permission to launch services to neighbouring Bahrain. Approval took "15 years to obtain". The airline plans to offer 10 flights a week on the Dubai-Bahrain route in the "next couple of months".
Meanwhile, Emirates aims to complete a study of alliances in the next four to five months. It has been courted by the Star Alliance and oneworld, but has kept to its policy of establishing codeshares across the alliance groups.
Until Emirates has its own loyalty programme, it will not move into an alliance, Sheikh Ahmed insists, adding that the carrier's frequent flier programme will be launched next April.
He says the current study will determine which way the carrier should go, whether to join an alliance, which one it should join and whether there is a future in these global airline groupings.
At the same time the airline's rapid network growth continues, with the recent launch of a twice weekly codeshare service, operated by partner airline Sri Lankan Airlines, from Colombo to Stockholm, via Dubai. Entebbe in Uganda is set to become its 50th destination next March, as an extension to the Dubai-Nairobi service. At the same time, services to Sydney (via Singapore) will begin to run four times a week, in time for the 2000 Olympics. Emirates' plans for US services await the delivery of its ultra long- range A340-500s, with the first of six aircraft on firm order due to arrive in late 2002.
The carrier has also received the first of its four 380/434-seat Boeing 777-300s, one of two leased from Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise. The Rolls-Royce Trent 800-powered aircraft is the first to sport Emirates' altered livery, with its name in a larger and new typeface and a modified United Arab Emirates flag on the tailfin. The airline has signed a lease deal with International Lease Finance for a second to be delivered in March 2001.
Source: Flight International
