The UAE carrier, Emirates expects to have its entire fleet in service by the end of the year, while most of its A380s have been parked since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. The CEO of Emirates also expressed some concern that the delivery of its Boeing 777X may be delayed until 2023 or possibly even longer, as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) conducts a robust certification process of the new aircraft.
Due to the arrival and roll out of a number of COVID-19 vaccines, many airlines around the world are hopeful that the general public will begin to feel safe enough to book flights and travel again. Most carriers have implemented vigorous cleaning routines and new airport check-in and boarding procedures for passengers. Emirates recently revealed its new premium economy cabin, which was installed on the carrier’s recently delivered Airbus A380-800 registered A6-EVN. The carrier has also put this brand new A380 into commercial service and the new premium economy cabin is now available for “passengers flying between Dubai and London Heathrow.”
In an interview with Reuters, the CEO of Emirates, Tim Clark said, “Once the pandemic is over and the global inoculation program has kicked in at pace, then I see the restoration and a recapture of activity curves in all aspects of the global economy at pace, probably in the middle to back end of [2021].” The CEO of the carrier added that Emirates was in a “good place” in terms of its current fleet, but acknowledged that the carrier wasn’t using its fleet in terms of its maximum utilisation.
The airline is currently utilizing only 17 Airbus A380s or around 15% of its available A380 fleet. Despite only using a small number of A380s, the UAE airline is using around 86% of its Boeing 777s. The carrier’s current route network consists of around 120 destinations worldwide, which is down 24% in comparison to its route network pre-COVID. The CEO of Emirates also told Reuters that the airline’s operational network won’t be profitable until March of 2023, which may further delay the long-awaited entry into service of the Boeing 777X, which Emirates is now the launch customer of since Lufthansa deferred its orders to a later delivery date.
Emirates is eager for the plane to join its fleet, but the new aircraft type has faced delays, partly due to the re-certification process of the Boeing 737 MAX. Getting the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft back into service has been Boeing’s top priority, this is mainly due to the number of orders for the 737 MAX, while orders for the 777X have been put on hold. Due to a failure of oversite by the FAA in the original certification of the Boeing 737 MAX, the FAA plan on conducting a series of more stringent inspection procedures as part of the Boeing 777X’s certification.
The CEO of Emirates, Tim Clark in an interview with Reuters commented by saying: “It is a question of when that aircraft is going to be completed and certified and offered for entry of service. That could be [2022], could be [2023], it could be even longer, so we will just wait and see as to what Boeing will do with regard to that and we will take a view as to how they fit into the fleet at that particular time.”
