India is an important market for Emirates, and receives the largest number of flights operated by it across its global network, the airline’s Chief Commercial Officer Adnan Kazim said about the recent decision to announce Ahmedabad and Mumbai among the first set of destinations that will be connected by its Airbus A350 aircraft.
“India is an important market. It always gets some attention from Emirates such as when we are deploying a new product,” Mr. Kazim told The Hindu recently on the sidelines of IATA Annual General Meeting 2024 . India has 171 weekly flights, followed by 133 weekly flights to the U.K. and 96 weekly flights to the U.S., he said.
In May, the airline announced the first set of nine destinations to be served by its A350 aircraft that will join the fleet from September 2024. The airline will be taking delivery of 10 of these planes by March 2025. The Emirates A350 will be deployed for Mumbai and Ahmedabad from October 27.
These first 10 Emirates A350 aircraft will offer three cabin classes, with 32 next generation Business Class seats, 21 seats in Premium Economy, and 259 Economy Class seats with improved leg room.
So, does this mean a departure from the First Class for Emirates? The senior executive dismissed the suggestion.
“We are fully committed behind the first class. All our Boeing 777-8s and Boeing 777-9s will have the first class offering. And all our A380s, which remain at the core of our fleet until 2037 and 2038 timeline, will continue to provide our signature first class offering (each one of them comes with 14 First Class cabins onboard),” he said while explaining that the decision to not have them for the A350s was because the markets they were being deployed on were those where traffic was heavier for Business and Premium Economy classes.
On the issue of high airfares, Mr. Kazim said there were multiple factors including capacity gap for markets such as India, apart from supply chain issues and crude oil price remaining above $80 per barrel. Dubai has also requested the Indian government to raise bilateral seat capacity by 50,000 seats per week from the current 66,000 seats per week on which the senior airline executive said the matter was for the two governments to review.
(The writer was in Dubai at the invitation of IATA)
