Dubai LCC latest
20 April 2008

Dubai's new budget carrier is apparently going to start operations in early 2009 from the new Al Maktoum International Airport in Jebel Ali. This is particularly strange given that the airport is a building site at the moment with almost no road access. And the lost opportunity of feeding passengers from the LCC to Emirates makes the decision even stranger. This may change.
The airline will be supported by Emirates in its start up phase but will have separate ownership and will not be a part of the Emirates Group. Expect initial funding from Emirates and the Dubai government and then a partial IPO within a few years.

The airline will apparently seek routes that are not currently flown by Emirates. I suspect there will have to be some duplication if only to build up a critical mass of flights. The CEO designate has already said that the airline will open with as many new routes and new airplanes as possible. Expect the airline to take some of the single aisle fleet that was ordered by the leasing arm of Dubai Aerospace Enterprises at the Dubai airshow in November.

As for routes; there are opportunities into central Asia - Baku, Tashkent,and Ashkhabad; to Nepal; to Izmir and Ankara in Turkey. But there will need to be new flights to India and Pakistan to get the critical mass of passengers.

The Dubai LCC and the A380
19 March 2008

Although the Dubai LCC will start operations with 737s or A320s the A380 offers huge potential for carrying large numbers of people on short haul turnarounds.
Emirates has 58 A380s on order, or 30% of the entire global A380 orderbook. The carrier has previously indicated it could operate low cost services with A380 equipment. In Nov-07, Emirates President, Tim Clark, stated that, had the stretch version of the A380 been available today, “probably two-thirds” of the A380s the Dubai-based carrier had on order (or some 38 aircraft) would be for that model.

He indicated that Emirates (or now the LCC subsidiary) would configure the proposed A380-900 with around 750 seats on a typical service, although some of the aircraft could be configured with 1,000 seats for routes to countries such as Thailand and Saudi Arabia.

The airline is currently officially planning a higher density medium-haul configuration with 604 seats, although the A380-800 model is licensed to handle 853 in an all-economy layout.

The practical recognition of the potential of the A380 as a mass transport, low cost vehicle is sure to stimulate wider interest in the aircraft. Until now, its sales have not been spectacular; they were not helped by successive delivery delays. But as Singapore Airlines' first A380 landed in London this week, the tide may be turning.

The Emirates LCC move follows the success of Air Arabia, based in the neighbouring emirate of Sharjah, which has reported outstanding profitability since its launch and has recently established cross-border JVs in Morocco and Nepal to target the North Africa/Europe and Asian markets, respectively. Kuwait-based LCC, Jazeera Airlines, has also established a base in Dubai.

Dubai Airport is expected to overtake Singapore Changi this year, handling in excess of 40 million passengers. The emirate is developing a new airport at Jebel Ali that will ultimately become the biggest in the world, with capacity for 120 million passenger p/a. The Emirates LCC will become a key ingredient in making the Dubai world gateway vision a reality.

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Air Arabia