Asia-Pacific is a profitable but tricky market for Emirates, said the airline’s chief Tim Clark.
Addressing delegates at the Arabian Travel Market, Clark commented on the challenges his airline faced in the region, as well as the opportunities for growth.
“[The region] has been a bit of a dogfight, but there’s a lot of capacity in the market,” said Clark.
“We get mixed up in the conflict between the low-cost carriers and indigenous legacy carriers but we’re dealing with that.”
The Gulf carrier has forged strong partnership with several Asia-Pacific carriers. One of the most notable examples is its collaboration with Qantas on the Kangaroo Route, which now connects via Emirates’ hub in Dubai before flying onwards to London.
Clark revealed the strategy has produced some healthy balance sheets: “By and large, the production growth and income growth matches – about 10 to 11 per cent”, said Clark.
Clark also responded to the recent controversy surrounding the ongoing Open Skies accusations made by the US carriers (American, Delta and, United) who seek to prevent the “Big Three” Middle East carriers from expanding their presence in the US.
He reiterated that Emirates has never benefited from state intervention or funding and receives no shareholder funding at all.
“We know that our financial statements, as verified and audited by PwC, are absolutely spot on,” said Clark. “The veracity of those documents is 100 per cent. I sleep relatively easy in my bed to the rebuttal of subsidy.”
Emirates’ chief also rebuffed the notion that his carrier was cannibalising the US market at the expense of the North American carriers. After all, according to Clark, American Airlines doesn’t even fly to the Middle East.
“They do five or six points in Asia, many in Europe, US and South America. So for them to say we’re eating their lunch, there isn’t an overlap. We bring millions of passengers into the US.”
For more information, visit emirates.com
Dominic Ellis, Clement Huang
