The opening of Al Maktoum International airport in the 2030s will create the opportunity for Emirates Airline and Flydubai to work even more closely together, according to the former’s president Tim Clark, as both airlines expand their fleets with new types and variants.
Today, Emirates is a codeshare and interline partner with hybrid carrier Flydubai, but the airlines largely operate from terminals on separate sides of the airport at Dubai International, creating a sub-optimal experience for connecting passengers.
However, speaking at a media roundtable during this year’s Dubai air show, which was held on the site of the new airport, Clark explained that “our thrust at the moment is to map what the airline will look like, post the building of the airport here”.
This is where the carrier’s already close relationship with Flydubai is likely to become even more important – and easier to facilitate.
“It will be a blended product probably, post [20]33 at this [airport],” Clark says.
He does not expand on the concept of a “blended product” but does pitch Emirates’ and Flydubai’s eventual offerings at the new airport – which Dubai intends to make the world’s biggest international gateway – as one and the same.
“They have an array of assets, we’re probably going to purchase some more… all that will be in the mix,” he says.
“So we’ll have, at the top of the inventory level, the [A]380 at 484 seats and four classes, down to the Max [jets operated by Flydubai].
“In that, we’ve populated with the two airlines a very neat choice of inventory, range and payload,” Clark adds.
Despite his excitement about plans for the new facility, Clark still expresses frustrations with the aircraft available for purchase by Emirates – particularly their size.
Notably, the need for Emirates to eventually replace its A380 superjumbos was behind its call at Dubai air show for a feasibility study into a potential Boeing 777-10 – even though the latter’s capacity, or that provided by a potential Airbus A350-2000, would still be “not nearly enough”.
Its comments accompanied an order for 65 more of the much-delayed 777-9 at the air show, the first of which Emirates now expects to receive in early 2027.
“What we want them to do is commit to looking at it and we want to have a real say in how it is designed,” Clark says of Boeing and a potential 777-10.
“Could the aircraft be stretched? Yes,” he says, adding that he believes GE Aerospace is “fairly confident that the [GE9X] engine on the [777-9] has growth in it”.
“So all the ingredients of a possible stretch are there.”
Crucially, a 777-10 is “the only one that’s going to come anywhere near the seat count we’d like” when Emirates’ Airbus A380s exit its fleet in the late 2030s and early 2040s, Clark states, while again lamenting that an aircraft of equivalent size to the superjumbo is not available to order.
“That’s why we’re thinking that somewhere in the [20]30s, this aeroplane would be plugged into the fleet,” he says of a potential 777-10.
But with Boeing’s focus today on certification of the 777-9, the motivation behind Emirates’ comments about a 777-10 feasibility study in Dubai was “putting a marker down”, he says, rather than demanding immediate action.
He notes that with previous aircraft types, stretches have tended to become available five or six years after initial service entry.
“We will keep the pressure on them,” he says of Boeing. “I think that they are alive to the need but they’re just very much hung up on what they have to do at the moment.
“With the pace of the certification of the [777-9], they can’t think, ‘let’s do this one first’.”
Regarding a potential Airbus A350-2000 – which could be an alternative to a 777-10 – “I know they’re working on it… but we don’t know what it is”, Clark says of the European airframer.
“In the past, when Emirates has got involved in design, things tend to happen, but it hasn’t happened here,” he says.
“They seem to be doing it in their own little way.”
TOO SMALL
Clark notes that his phone is “full of messages” between him and the chief executive of Airbus’s Commercial Aircraft business Christian Scherer “going back many years” regarding his frustration that the A350-1000 is too small.
The Emirates president foresees a number of challenges with developing an A350-2000, including his belief that it would need a new powerplant, given the challenging operating conditions in the Middle East.
“In my view, it’s a new engine for the -2000,” he says. “I’m not sure the [Rolls Royce Trent XWB-97] has the capability of doing what that needs to be done in our conditions.”
Moreover, Clark’s concerns about the Trent XWB-97 have already prevented Emirates from committing to the A350-1000.
“It’s a work in progress,” he says of efforts to address those concerns while adding that there was no truth to pre-Dubai air show stories suggesting Emirates was set to place an A350-1000 order at the event.
“It’s not something we can commit to at the moment.”
Whatever the outcomes at Airbus and Boeing, Clark believes demand for larger widebodies would come from many carriers beyond Emirates, particularly given infrastructure and slot constraints at key hubs around the world.
But frustrations over aircraft size apart, the new airport will enable Emirates to grow its fleet in a way that is not possible at Dubai International airport, Clark explains.
This will position it to tap the potential created by having “two-thirds of the world’s population within eight hours” of Emirates’ home.
“And it’s in that area that we could start looking at more [A]350s,” Clark states, while also highlighting the 35 Boeing 787s Emirates has on order (it is yet to specify the variant).
Clark believes the “significantly improved” A350-900 could probably reach Buenos Aires from Dubai, while he also recounts a recent representation from Las Vegas International airport, which wants Emirates to serve the airport non-stop from Dubai.
He even suggests incoming 777Xs might reach Hawaii.
“The opening of this airport frees off the capability of growing our fleet with all these bits and pieces,” he says.
“If you look at all the assets that you can bring into the 500 mile… 1,500 mile, right up to the 9,000, 10,000 range capability…. we have some really, really interesting aeroplanes to look at in the future.
“So it’s a great time.”