Founded on October 25, 1985, Emirates is celebrating its phenomenal 25 years of 20% year-on-year average growth. And vice-chairman Sir Maurice Flanagan has said that the airline will continue to follow the same business plan. Speaking to local media, Flanagan said that the airline would go “on and on” with “more of the same, outpacing other airlines”.
Emirates was a beneficiary of Dubai’s open skies policy to open up the emirate to more competition. As the previously government-protected airline in Dubai, Gulf Air started to cut back flights to Dubai and Emirate filled in the gap in the market, with $10 million of government start up funds.
Since then the airline has built its reputation as a trusted brand and has based its most-recent expansion plan on the Airbus A380. From an launch order of 22 A380s, Emirates currently expects to take delivery of a brand new superjumbo ever month for the next 12 years.
"I don't know what the others guys are waiting for. That aircraft is absolutely superb," Flanagan said about the A380.
Flanagan is confident Emirates has the demand to warrant such a large A380 fleet. "Although we're getting all this extra capacity every month, we're still short of aircraft. There are places that we could serve profitably, that we don't have the capacity to do yet," said Flanagan.