Emirates could take 4 years to resume full operations

01 Jun 2020


Emirates Emirates’ President Tim Clark said on Monday that the airline could take up to four years to resume flying to its entire network.

The Dubai-based carrier grounded passenger flights in March, and has since only operated a limited number of services, due to plummeting demand led by the coronavirus pandemic. The airline was operating flights to 157 destinations in 83 countries prior to the outbreak. 

“I think probably by the year 2022/23, 2023/24 we will see things coming back to some degree of normality and Emirates will be operating its network as it was and hopefully as successfully as it was,” said outgoing President Clark said in a webcast interview with aviation consultant John Strickland.

Emirates has cautioned that the current situation be the airline’s most difficult in its 35 years of operation. On Sunday, it announced some layoffs due to the impact of the global health crisis.

Clark is due to become an adviser to the airline once relinquishing his position as president later this month. He noted that the industry may begin its path to recovery by summer 2021, if a vaccine was made available worldwide by the beginning of next year. 

“We will start to see an uptick, quite a large uptick in demand for travel,” Clark said, adding that Emirates would be able to get its fleet ready within 48 hours if it had to.

He pointed out that demand for air travel will likely continue to grow into 2023 and 2024, unless there was another global crisis which would threaten the economy. 

However, Clark noted that social distancing on planes was not feasible both in economic and environmental terms, as this would mean operating flights which were half empty. 

He added that for the time being, Emirates will continue to ask passengers boarding their aircraft to wear gloves and facemasks at all times while on board. 

 

Read the latest news updates - Britain eases some lockdown rules, schools to reopen