Dubai: With Emirates having announced a $99 billion order at this year’s Dubai Airshow, its President, Tim Clark, has a lot of seats to fill, a lot of destinations to touch and most importantly, continue the fight with global markets for additional rights. In an exclusive interview with Gulf News, Clark lines out Emirates’ tough fight for more flying rights into markets like India, Europe and Canada besides discussing the airline’s plans for Dubai World’s Central’s Al Maktoum International airport.
Gulf News: Will you look to jointly negotiate plane orders in the future as well, like you did with Qatar Airways for the Boeing 777-X?
Tim Clark: In the area of the assessment of the Boeing 777-X, we were quite happy to work with Qatar Airways, because they asked us to. They respect us for the work that we have done, not just in assessing aeroplanes but having a significant input to the design of the planes. All he [Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways] said was ‘if you can get me a spec that you are happy with, I know I will be happy with that’. And he wrote to Boeing saying whatever Emirates does, I will buy it.
Will Emirates be moving part of its operations to Al Maktoum International by 2020?
It has to be one or the other [airport] for us. We cannot split the hub. Nothing can be done before 2020. They can’t build it that quickly. Remember, the current concourse took six years to build. Now to get to build this, to produce a hundred million passengers per year structure in this field in six years is Herculean.
However, the Dubai International airport (DIA) will remain open – in the old days there was a talk about it being shut. It is being expanded and that gives the government an awful lot of choice – whether it’s the foreign carrier community that comes here [at DWC], or whether it’s Emirates or flydubai. That will be worked out in the next few months.
Does the deal between India’s Jet Airways and Etihad Airways worry you?
Everybody is telling me that I should be worried and maybe consider engaging with another Indian carrier such as IndiGo or Spicejet. I have been in this area for 38 years and I have watched Indian aviation very closely. I do not personally believe that the engagement of us in an Indian carrier is the way to do it. Our job is to persuade the Indian government that we add value to what India needs and what India is, by virtue of a hub that we offer.
Etihad’s business model is significantly different from us. It still emulates the core but to add capacity and link, they think that the acquisition of multiple entities is the way to go.
Do you think that’s [Etihad’s] a healthy growth model according to you?
I would say there are risks. But that’s their job to measure those risks.
Is India still one of you most lucrative markets?
It was. We haven’t had any seat increase in India since May 2008. We have 10 points [that we fly to in India]. And I cannot understand why that hasn’t been allowed to grow. Emirates has 54,000 weekly seats into India, a couple of which we gave to flydubai.
In terms of ideal seats into India, if you grow at 10-15 per cent conservatively – do the math for five years, and you are talking about 75-80 per cent increase in what we have today.
And don’t forget that Etihad, as a part of this Jet Airways deal, got another 33,000 seats over the next three years. So the Indian government has awarded in Etihad’s case a 130 per cent increase in the seats over a period of time. We have been there a lot longer than Etihad – they came along 18 years after we have been flying.
What are we doing about it? We have multiple dialogues with the Indian government, we are trying to persuade them.
Are you hopeful that you will get additional landing rights into European and American markets on the back of the enormous orders you placed at the Airshow on Sunday?
Yes. In the US, we have unlimited landing rights because we have an open-skies agreement. And in Europe, we have multiple opportunities. For instance, even in Germany, with the four points that we serve, they are open to us.
Meanwhile, the level of resistance that we face from the European and American carriers is being sustained, but is a little bit less at the moment, and more friendly.
Have you made any headway into your quest for additional landing rights into Canada?
No. It has been going on [for long]. I don’t see a breakthrough there. If countries do not wish Emirates in their countries, I am sorry but they will be the losers. But we respect them for what their positions. Canada allows us three flights a week. A hundred miles across the border, in the US, we have unlimited rights — there is a canyon of difference between what the Canadians do and what the Americans do. So we just move on and move around.
