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Emirates Airline

Emirates Airline Overview

Emirates is the largest airline in the Middle East and the UAE’s national flag carrier.

Its inaugural flights took off in 1985 from Dubai to Karachi and Mumbai in a Boeing 737 and an Airbus 300 B4 leased from Pakistan International Airlines.

The airline now operates more than 3,600 weekly flights from Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport.

Emirates flies to more than 150 cities in 80 countries and has a fleet of nearly 250 aircraft, while its cargo division, Emirates SkyCargo, is one of the world’s largest international cargo airlines.

The Emirates fleet consists of Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s, with the A350 coming soon.

Emirates says it is “committed to environmental stewardship” and focuses on reducing emissions and “responsible consumption”. It has allocated more than $200 million to research projects for sustainable fuels.

In October 2023 Emirates signed a deal with Shell Aviation to supply over 300,000 gallons of blended sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) for use at Dubai International Airport.

The following month an Emirates A380 completed a 45-minute test flight with one of the aircraft’s four engines 100 percent powered by SAF.

The airline is a subsidiary of The Emirates Group, which is owned by the government of Dubai’s Investment Corporation of Dubai.

Emirates Airline News

Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum at Airbus headquarters. Emirates has 240 Boeing passenger planes and 61 Airbus A350-900s on order

Sheikh Ahmed: China’s Boeing rejects won’t fly for Emirates

Emirates Airline’s chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum has downplayed speculation that the carrier could buy Boeing planes originally destined for China. Speaking at the Arabian Travel Market in Dubai on Tuesday, Sheikh Ahmed said Emirates was actively exploring options to expand its fleet, but the Boeing aircraft – ordered by Chinese carriers but […]

Flydubai operates a fleet of 88 Boeing 737s but wants to expand into longer-haul routes with 787 aircraft

Boeing delays are hampering Flydubai expansion, says CEO

Delays in the delivery of Flydubai’s first wide-body aircraft from Boeing are hampering the carrier’s expansion into long-haul routes and it may seek compensation, its CEO has told AGBI. The low-cost carrier is waiting for 30 Boeing 787-9 twin-aisle planes, part of an $11 billion deal announced at the 2023 Dubai Airshow.  The first deliveries […]

Boeing's factory in Kansas. Chinese customers are declining aircraft deliveries due to the ongoing trade conflict with the US

China’s Boeing boycott opens doors for Gulf carriers

China’s escalating trade standoff with the US is reverberating through the global aviation industry, offering opportunities for Gulf airlines, as Chinese carriers refuse to accept US-built Boeing aircraft. Speaking on a first quarter earnings call on Wednesday, Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg confirmed that several Chinese customers have declined to accept new aircraft due to retaliatory […]

The cabin of a Comac C919, the Chinese aircraft manufacturer’s most high-profile plane

China ‘unlikely to overthrow Boeing-Airbus duopoly’

China’s state-owned planemaker, Comac (Commercial Aircraft Corp of China), is decades away from breaking up the global dominance of Boeing and Airbus, according to the head of the world’s largest airline trade association. The result will be that Gulf Arab carriers such as Emirates, Etihad Airways and Qatar Airways have little choice but to stomach […]

Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association, says aircraftleasing companies will benefit from delays at Boeing and Airbus

IATA chief: Boeing and Airbus woes are a win for jet leasing

Aircraft leasing companies in the Arabian Gulf are profiting from prolonged delivery delays at aircraft makers Boeing and Airbus, with order backlogs at the manufacturers unlikely to clear before the end of the decade. “These [aircraft leasing] guys are in a fantastic position because they have a fantastic fleet of aircraft,” Willie Walsh, director general […]

Pharmaceuticals are loaded onto an Emirates SkyCargo plane. The carrier transported almost 2m tonnes in the first half of 2024

Emirates SkyCargo bullish on US despite tariff turbulence

Emirates SkyCargo has said it remains fully committed to the North American market despite escalating trade tensions and uncertainty sparked by Donald Trump’s tariffs.  The cargo division of Dubai’s state-owned airline Emirates operates freighter services to cities such as Chicago and Houston. It also uses the belly-hold capacity of passenger aircraft to transport goods in […]

Emirates' Courier Express service aims to speed up deliveries

Emirates to squeeze more from fleet with parcel deliveries

Emirates has launched a premium package delivery service to open up new streams of revenue from its existing fleet and compete with the likes of DHL and Fedex for a share of a market worth nearly $500 billion. “Just like passengers, packages will travel from origin to destination directly,” the airline said in a press […]

Jet fuel costs are a substantial outlay for airlines but falling oil prices may bring them down

Fuel price down but airlines fear fewer passengers

While the lowest oil prices in four years may translate into lower jet fuel costs for airlines, slower economic growth in Europe and Asia could dampen international travel demand for Gulf carriers, analysts say. At Dubai’s Emirates, for example, jet fuel represented the company’s largest single cost in its fiscal year to March 31, 2024 […]

Leveraging market conditions for Gulf IPOs, the investment Corporation of Dubai is strategically positioned to realise value through the potential listing of its existing assets, including the prominent Dubai Duty Free

Dubai’s ICD could tap IPO market to fund expansion

The Investment Corporation of Dubai (ICD), the principal investment arm of the emirate’s government, could potentially turn to the capital markets with a raft of listings over the next year or so, according to analysts. Established in 2006, ICD is worth about $340 billion and already has one of its crown jewels – Emirates NBD, […]