Emirates’ India expansion plans mapped to tier-II cities

Dubai-based Emirates, which currently flies to nine major cities in India, is looking to expand its presence in tier-II cities of India, its vice president for India and Nepal Mohammad Sarhan told DH in an exclusive interview. 

“As part of Emirates’ expansion in India, we plan to expand our Indian network to include tier-II cities. This of course is subject to additional capacity being allocated to Emirates,” he said. 

This comes after the head of the United Arab Emirates flag carrier Tim Clark said that Indian airlines are missing out on revenues to the tune of $800-900 million due to limited bilateral agreements between India and Dubai speaking at the CAPA India Summit early this year. He also spoke of a scope for “at least double” the weekly limit of 65,000 seats. 

The debate about increasing airline seats between India and Dubai has been going on for the last five years as a large number of Indian travellers use carriers such as Emirates to transit to Europe and the US. However, Indian carriers flying directly to Europe and the US are not keen on expanding flying capacity to West Asia, fearing more flights to transit hubs in the region may hit the passenger load factor of their
direct flights.

India continues to be a major market for the airline, especially in its hub Dubai. This summer, Emirates carried over 14 million passengers with average seat load factors exceeding 80% across its global network to Dubai, Sarhan informed. Other significant markets alongside India were the United Kingdom, Germany, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, China, Egypt and Kuwait. 

Independently, the airline has seat load factors to points in India upwards of 90% in the high season and the major routes from India include Dubai, US, UK, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Australia and some parts of Europe, Sarhan further revealed. 

Interestingly, for outbound and inbound international traffic in India, Emirates remained the largest foreign carrier with over 15% share and third largest overall after IndiGo and Air India, with nearly 9% share, according to April-June from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. 

“Mumbai has been one of the most contributing stations for Emirates,” Sarhan said, adding that the introduction of premium economy cabins in Bengaluru and Mumbai routes; and the introduction of the iconic Emirates A380 aircraft in the former further underscores the significance of these destinations within Emirates’ Indian operations. 

Emirates Airline Boeing 777-300ER planes are seen at Dubai International Airport in Dubai.

At a time when demand for air travel is booming, Emirates has launched its premium economy cabin on flights from Mumbai and Bengaluru starting October 29 (Sunday) and October 30 (Monday) respectively. “We anticipate it will be highly popular amongst our Indian customers travelling for leisure or business and looking to trade up from Economy to enjoy more comfort and a more premium dining experience,” Sarhan said, underscoring the increased appetite for premium travel amongst Indian passengers. 

As for global expansion, Emirates recently added Montreal to its route network which has provided a second gateway into Canada after Toronto. “In addition to providing direct services to the two Canadian cities and 12 points in the US we also have recently forged codeshare partnerships with leading airlines like United and Air Canada, which allows our customers access to even more domestic points in Canada, the US and also Mexico,” Sarhan explained.

Globally, Emirates has more than 30 codeshare, 117 interline and 11 intermodal rail partners across the transport ecosystem in over 100 countries.  The airline has been looking to strike a partnership with Tata-owned Air India, however, nothing has panned out so far.