Emirates will start flying to two new cities in China as the Dubai carrier taps rising demand for travel in the world’s most populous country.
From May next year, Emirates will start flying four times a week to Yinchuan and Zhengzhou. The airline already flies to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou on the mainland.
Yinchuan, the capital of Ning xia, is west of the Yellow River and east of Helan Mountain. The city, which has a large Muslim population, is a connecting point for trade and cultural exchange between China and the Middle East.
Zhengzhou, the capital of Henan, is an educational, technological and economic hub.
Emirates will operate Boeing 777-200LRs to the destinations. The aircraft has a three-class configuration with 266 seats and 14 tonnes of cargo capacity.
Popular commodities are expected to be transported from these cities, including electronics such as mobile phones from Zhengzhou and agricultural goods including goji berries and cashmere from Yinchuan, said Emirates.
“As China’s regions continue to open up to the global economy, Emirates remains keen to support this with the further expansion of air services in mainland China,” said Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, the airline group’s chairman and chief executive.
“In particular we’re interested in exploring the opportunity of daily services to Hangzhou and Chongqing, and a second daily service to Guangzhou,” he said.
Trade between Dubai and China has been increasing. There are 3,000 Chinese companies and banks in Dubai, and the number is growing. While the emirate has about 200,000 Chinese residents, Chinese visitors to Dubai rose by 25 per cent between 2013 and last year.
The National
Alaska Airlines and Emirates sign code-share
Dubai airline Emirates has signed a codeshare deal with Alaska Airlines to offer better connectivity to all its passengers travelling to the United States.
The codeshare agreement will help passengers connect to 49 other US cities including Honolulu, Denver, Las Vegas, Portland, Phoenix, Pullman, Sacramento, Spokane, Anchorage, Juneau, and Fairbanks as well as Canadian destinations such as Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver and Victoria.
Emirates currently operates two daily flights from Dubai to Seattle from where passengers can connect to Alaskan Airlines flights, the carrier said.
“Alaska Airlines’ service and exceptional connectivity across the US and Canada, particularly in the Pacific Northwest, perfectly complements our global network and extends the range of travel options for both our customer bases,” said Emirates’ president Sir Tim Clark.
Pending governmental approval, Emirates will begin marketing up to 300 daily Alaska Airlines flights. Passengers will also be able to purchase tickets on the connecting flights using a single reservation and avail of lounge access on both the airlines.
“Our new codeshare agreement gives customers connecting through our West Coast hubs seamless access to Emirates’ global network,” said Alaska Airlines’ chief executive and president Brad Tilden.
“As Seattle’s hometown airline, our partnership already connects 2,500 customers a week to Emirates and we expect that to increase as we streamline the travel experience for customers travelling between Alaska and Emirates.”
The codeshare agreement comes even as Gulf airlines are engaged in a rift with other US airlines over subsidies. The US carriers say that Emirates, Etihad and Qatar Airways have violated the terms of the open skies treaty by receiving subsidies worth $42bn from their respective government. These funds have helped them expand rapidly in US market, the American carriers claim.
But regional carriers have responded with detailed white papers, which they say contain proof that their operations impact the US economy positively and do not violate any clauses in the open skies treaty.
Gulf carriers have also continued to step up their flights on US routes citing strong demand.
Emirates recently introduced America Pass, a feature that allows all its passengers to connect to 90 other US cities through its five partner airlines. It also launched a second daily service to Boston in October.
Meanwhile Qatar Airways launched three more routes from Doha to the US including Los Angeles, Boston and Atlanta earlier this year.
Gulf Business
Sea-Tac can’t handle the A380 Emirates wants to send
As Emirates airlines grows its volume of passengers through Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, bringing in a mammoth Airbus A380 would be the logical next step.
Except Sea-Tac can’t fit the 262-foot wingspan of the twin-deck A380 and still maintain regular operations.
The issue is FAA rules that dictate required separation between aircraft, said Sea-Tac spokesman Perry Cooper. While the airport can handle the 225-foot wingspan of Boeing (NYSE: BA) 747-8 jets, the extra 37 feet of an A380 puts that jet in another category.
“At this point we don’t have anything in master planning to accommodate that, because of separation rules,” Cooper said.
While the high-volume airport technically could manage an emergency A380 landing, and even has provided for that possibility, the configuration wouldn’t work for regular service.
“If they were to land on the nearest runway,” he said, “the taxiway next it would be to be shut off, and nobody would be able to operate until that aircraft would go through.”
That’s too bad, because Emirates Vice President of U.S. Sales Matthias Schmid said in an interview this week that as the Dubai-based airline grows in Seattle, graduating to an A380 on one of the twice-daily flights might be the logical next step.
“It is no secret,” he said. “Our president Tim Clark already has mentioned one day looking at full A380 operations to all of our U.S. gateways.”
Emirates now flies the 550-passenger A380 into five U.S. gateways – San Francisco, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston and New York – and hopes to add Chicago and Boston.
The A380 is one of the two mainstays of the Emirates fleet. The Boeing 777 is the other, and Emirates balances which jet it uses with where demand is greatest.
Currently Emirates operates a 290-passenger 777-200ER and a 364-passenger 777-300ER jet for the two daily flights between Sea-Tac and Dubai, the second of which started in July. After it upgrades the 200ER, a A380 would be the next way to grow.
Additional growth also would benefit SeaTac-based Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK), which supplies connecting flights for about a third of each Emirates flight.
While Sea-Tac would be happy to welcome A380s, there’s no way to grow at the current Sea-Tac site to accommodate them, Cooper said.
The 1,500-acre airport is one of the most high-density in the United States, and the positioning of the three runways, and the taxiways, are dictated by the narrow site.
“We’d love to if we had more space for the airfield,” Cooper said. “But we have to be considerate of the three cities we’re around, and we’re not looking to expand beyond three-runway configuration.”
Puget Sound Business Journal