The growth of Emirates as an airline has paralleled the growth of Dubai as a global hub as well as a stopover destination, said Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial Operations, West Asia and Indian Ocean, Ahmed Khoori, recently.
He said the vision the government had for the city has always been aligned to that which it had for the airline and therein lay the key to the success of each.
To illustrate his point about how Emirates airline has grown since its inception, Khoori said he first flew to Colombo sometime between 1989 and 1991, as a young management trainee, on an Emirates Airbus A310 and now, nearly 30 years later, he flew on its A380, the largest and most sophisticated aircraft available today.
Dubai's geographic position, veritably at the centre of the world, makes it strong hub connecting East to West and West to East, which has contributed to Emirates' success, Khoori said. Most major destinations are no more than eight hours away. In addition, Dubai has one of the most sophisticated airports in the world as well as skyscrapers, restaurants, malls and other infrastructure, entertainment and amenities that one finds in any major international city, encouraging passengers not just to transit, but make a stopover.
Emirates' strength is that it has been able to cope with the travails of political upheavals in the region, downturns in the global economy and the ups and down of the aviation industry. Through such tough times as well as in more opportune ones, as in the recent past when fuel prices and the sterling pound fell, the Emirates product has been consistent, he said.
Of the recent one-off A380 flight to Colombo, he said it was to introduce the product to the Sri Lankan market as well as to test the upgraded runway and services at Colombo airport for handling this aircraft. He said Emirates received cooperation from all concerned authorities and was happy with airport services.
Khoori said Colombo is an important market for Emirates which flies passengers from Colombo through Dubai to Europe as more and more Lankans seek employment there. The A380 is deployed on many European routes.
Colombo is also a hub for Emirates which has flights from Colombo to Male and Dubai and from Colombo to Singapore, with easy connections to Melbourne.
Khoori is upbeat about the potential that Colombo has to become a strong hub. He says the country has advantageous geographic positioning and with new resorts, hotels and other infrastructure as well as investment opportunities, Sri Lanka can become a major destination.
He is therefore positive about passenger growth from USA and Europe into Sri Lanka. Passenger numbers in countries like India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, which are in the region he overlooks, is set to grow, he says.
Khoori said Emirates is consistently expanding its route network and upgrading its product as air travel becomes the order of the day. (MM)
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