[Charles-P]

Filling them profitably is the complex art of yield management.

Yes I fully agree and I would suggest they are doing that well by having both First and Business as well as Economy full on a major route. I paid Euro 7148 for two Business Class return tickets, that does not sound like uneconomic business for Emirates to me !

[capetonianm]

I can’t comment on whether that is ‘uneconomic business’ or not without knowing the route and competitors’ fares, but bear in mind that you may have paid a substantially higher fare than many of the people sitting around you in the same cabin, who may have booked cheaper and more restrictive fares, or may have been travelling on loyalty or courtesy upgrades, or free ID tickets, dead heading crew etc.

[Charles-P]

who may have booked cheaper and more restrictive fares

That’s true – I booked very late and was forced to pay more as a result however I doubt that anybody in First or Business was paying much less. Still looks like Emirates is doing ok to me.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=808209]

Well, if you cancel the under performing flights and maintain the higher performing flights, that would not exactly be a surprise, would it?

That wooshing sound you heard was the point, just missing you.

[/quote]

I didn’t miss the point, I just found it tautological, in the context of the thread.

[FDOS_UK]

[quote quote=808227]

who may have booked cheaper and more restrictive fares

That’s true – I booked very late and was forced to pay more as a result however I doubt that anybody in First or Business was paying much less. Still looks like Emirates is doing ok to me.

[/quote]

That sounds cheap to me, just before Ramadan, if they are refundable tickets. BA would quote ~€12,000 for similar flights and that involving a 1 stop itinerary, not direct – whcih usually commands a premium.

Given your expressed view that BA is good value and and an excellent product, I’m surprised you didn’t book with them.

[FDOS_UK]

I’m just at MAN and notice the early of the 3 EK flights is a 777, not a 380.

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=808304]I’m just at MAN and notice the early of the 3 EK flights is a 777, not a 380.

[/quote]

The morning flight from LGW is a 777 too. I asked one of the agents, they said the A380 would be back after Ramadan. Still it saved a hike to gate 110.

[DoorsToManual]

Tom,

Really? You’re allowing a picture of planes, at an airport (the place where most airlines park their planes) to fuel the ‘rumours’ and you’re printing the rumour. This is the Daily Mail online school of journalism arriving at BT. I saw 8 BA parked planes at Heathrow this morning…I’ve provided ‘evidence’, what’s going on? Are BA in trouble? You can give me fact or rumour, I don’t mind.

[wowzimmer]

[quote quote=808227]

who may have booked cheaper and more restrictive fares

Still looks like Emirates is doing ok to me.

[/quote]

Doing OK? I don’t know so much… an 82% drop in profits doesn’t sound so healthy. Nor do the other figures. Just $340 million USD in profit and a load factor of 75.1% (down 1.4% on 2015). Let’s compare with BA – because other posters on this forum know the airline so well – a £1,473 million profit in 2016 with a load factor of 81.2% (actually down 0.3% on 2015).

Admittedly, it’s not in the red and plenty of airlines do that regularly.
But Emirates has a large route network and I don’t whether looking a small sample of wealthy, European destinations is the best way to litmus test the current state of Emirates’ business.

[Professor Sabena]

I observed this also. It is not the regular aircraft that are in or out of service or in use. These were clearly “parked” A/C. Of course EK will rotate aircraft. The measure is where they were at the end of 2016. The number of parked aircraft was nothing like this.

[Tom Otley]

[quote quote=808328]Tom,

Really? You’re allowing a picture of planes, at an airport (the place where most airlines park their planes) to fuel the ‘rumours’ and you’re printing the rumour. This is the Daily Mail online school of journalism arriving at BT. I saw 8 BA parked planes at Heathrow this morning…I’ve provided ‘evidence’, what’s going on? Are BA in trouble? You can give me fact or rumour, I don’t mind.

[/quote]

Which is why it’s a forum thread rather than a story – a discussion point. You have evidence of BA doing the same, I’d love to hear it. I will then research it and if it’s a story I will publish it. Same for Emirates, same for any airline.

[Intheair]

Doors to manual

Correct me if I am wrong, but the BA planes were “parked” at a gate – the Emirates were at a remote site ( my poor eyesight oermitting).

[SimonS1]

It’s pretty clear that the EK model is labouring a bit at the moment. However I’m not convinced the picture proves much evidence of aircraft parked up. If you took a picture at LHR you will see a lot of BA aircraft, it doesn’t mean they are parked up.

However clearly EK are flying into some headwinds – I read in the paper they are seeing serious devaluations on their Africa routes, and the issues with flights to USA have clearly hurt a bit (quite why it’s dangerous to carry a laptop onboard on a flight to NY but not to London is a different issue).

There have clearly been some cuts to the proposition as well, minor things like amenity kits and replacing the grey rag with a sealed ‘wet wipe’).

Time will tell who has made the smarter play, BA or Emirates.

[SimonS1]

[quote quote=808381]Doors to manual

Correct me if I am wrong, but the BA planes were “parked” at a gate – the Emirates were at a remote site ( my poor eyesight oermitting).

[/quote]

The relevance being what? A plane parked at a remote stand is a plane out of use?

Aircraft often have extended periods between flights and are parked remotely rather than blocking a jetty. Every day I could show you BA aircraft towed to a remote gates at JNB and CPT. Not really significant.

Plus for the bigger fleets they do have some ‘thunderbird’ capacity. With 260 odd aircraft in the fleet, having 4/5 spares available does not seem unrealistic. I was thankful they did when my a/c to Lusaka last November went tech, as it avoided the type of delay BA are becoming associated with these days.

Could any have been awaiting maintenance perhaps?

And if you have ever take EK flights from less salubrious destinations like Lusaka, Harare, Dar etc they quite often park in those bays.

I don’t think there is much to write about here really. Its a photo. If BT wants to get to the bottom of it why not just contact EK and ask?

[Intheair]

The relevance being door to manual posted a picture which was different nature to that posted at the start of the topic. Pretty straightforward really, read what I said.

I don’t know if this has any relevance to EK’s passemger loads, neither do you. If the editor of this site wants to raise a forum topic, he is at a perfect right to do so.

[Author]

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