Emirates seeks to open Canada's skies

6 February 2009

Tim Clark - President of Emirates Airline writing in the National Post newspaper in Canada. He is being a little disingenuous. He forgets to mention that Etihad also flies 3 times daily to Toronto and that the UAE has therefore daily traffic rights (1 a day) to Canada.

That said it can only make sense for the UAE to be granted additional rights to Canada - and if Emirates and Etihad can fill their planes good luck to them. The government maybe trying to protect Air Canada's traffic to India. The likelihood is that the market will simply get bigger with increases in capacity.

Anyway here is Mr. Clark's letter

"A little over one year ago, Emirates Airline began flying to Canada from our home base in Dubai. In offering a direct flight between Toronto and Dubai three times a week, Emirates finally brought a direct connection between two cities at the forefront of a major trade relationship between Canada and the Gulf Region.

While a decade ago many Canadians had never visited Dubai and most businesses did not identify the Middle East as a strong growth market, today trade and tourism between Canada, Dubai and the surrounding region, is growing exponentially. There are now thousands of Canadians living in Dubai and hundreds of Canadian companies doing business there. Indeed, many of Dubai’s biggest successes have Canadian connections, including the famous Emirates Towers which were designed by a Canadian architect.

Emirates has long sought to increase its presence in the Canadian market. We are eager to provide additional flights from Dubai to Canada to further grow that emerging relationship. We argue that desire to increase service to Canada has taken on new importance as a result of the current global economic uncertainty and its impact on Canada.

Two specific impacts are relevant to the discussion about enhanced air access between Dubai and Canada. First, there are daily reports about the challenges of the Canadian tourism industry, and in particular the decline in U.S. visitors.

Second, with the American economy facing a sharp downturn, Canadian businesses are anxious to expand their export base beyond the traditional U.S. market. In October and November, for example, senior government-led delegations from Ontario, Alberta, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia all visited Dubai in an effort to stimulate trade and investment.

Allowing Emirates to offer additional flights to Canada is a no-risk proposition for the government of Canada that would help address the challenges noted above. It costs no governments or taxpayers money and would provide a significant boost to Canadian trade and tourism.

Let’s start with tourism, since it is so important to the Canadian economy and is in such an apparent state of distress. Imagine that one of the world’s fastest growing airlines wanted to fly to your country more frequently, carrying the world’s most sought after and highest spending tourists. With Canada’s tourism industry suffering so much, would you expect any government to say no?

Unfortunately, this remains the case. Emirates is restricted to three flights a week to Canada as a whole, all of which go to Toronto. To put that in perspective, of the 100 destinations on six continents that we fly to, almost all have a minimum of a daily flight.

Emirates has been seeking the right to increase flights to Canada for almost a decade. The UAE Government has also repeatedly asked Ottawa to re-negotiate the existing bilateral Agreement on Air Transport to allow increased flights between Canada and the UAE. However, these requests are sadly rebuffed on a regular basis.

Passengers on Emirates’ flights to Canada would include many additional UAE tourists who spend, on average, $10,000 per week, per person when they vacation. Those tourists are a natural for Canada given your welcoming, open, multicultural and progressive style with magnificent natural assets and sophisticated cities. Emirati tourists vacation for an extended period, often for up to a month, and travel in larger groups. Emirates also would grow tourism arrivals to Canada from other non-traditional markets such as the Middle East, Africa and the South Asian subcontinent, helping to diversify sources of tourists to your country.

Those tourists are not coming presently because they have so many other destination options, all of which are easier to get to. Consider the number of weekly Emirates flights to Canada vs. those to countries with whom you are competing to attract tourists: United Kingdom, 98; Australia, 49; Germany, 49; South Africa, 28; New Zealand, 28; United States, 27; France, 19. The total number of weekly Emirates’ flights to Canada: three.

As for trade, it is a simple fact that frequent direct air service between markets is critical for growth. Dubai, the UAE and the Middle East generally are still booming markets for Canadian exporters of goods and services, despite the global economic slowdown. The UAE is, in fact, Canada’s largest merchandise export market in the Middle East and North Africa region — with 97% of the bilateral trade made up of Canadian exports. Despite that, Dubai is serviced by only three flights a week from Canada.

Therefore, to all those provincial delegations who visit Dubai seeking to expand their trade relationships in the Middle East, fast and efficient air transportation to get those goods to market is essential — and bear in mind that the cargo space on our existing flights from Toronto to Dubai is often sold out months in advance; such is the limitation of three flights a week.

In reading this, you may ask who in Canada could possibly oppose opening your skies to a carrier like Emirates. Certainly not the numerous tourism associations we have met with, or the many chambers of commerce and boards of trade, or the provincial and municipal governments, or the international airports or the major Canadian companies doing business in Dubai.

We agree wholeheartedly with those in Canada who suggest that an open skies-type air transport agreement with the UAE would be a natural fit with your government’s Blue Sky policy on air services liberalization. Being a strong believer in air services liberalization, Emirates fully supports this policy. In fact, Emirates owes its consistent success and resilience to the open skies environment in Dubai, where it has to compete with over 125 other scheduled airlines.

However, despite the stated Canadian policy in favour of open skies and the many Canadian supporters of a more liberalized air transport agreement with the UAE, our long-standing request for an increase in Emirates service to Canada has yet to be granted.

To us, that is a missed opportunity. With Canada just announcing the signing of a new open skies agreement with Europe, we hope that our request will be considered anew. While increased Emirates flights would not solve all the Canadian challenges of tourism and finding new export markets, we can provide a significant stimulus to your tourism and export industries at no cost to government, which are precisely the arguments the federal government used in announcing the deal with Europe. This simple, effective proposition deserves a chance."

From the lower deck

20 January 2009

Yesterday was my debut on the A380 flying with Emirates to London on EK001. How was it? I hear my reader asking.

The answer is OK. But this is not a Concorde. It is just a big airplane. And the question is more about how has Emirates fitted out the plane than about the airplane itself.

Lets start with the airplane.

Boarding was easy - it was not a full load. The plane is significantly quieter than other modern airliners. The take-off is little more than a gently powered roll. Sitting on the lower deck you have no idea that there is another deck full of (premium) passengers above you.

On the lower deck the fuselage is still sloping outwards - so the window seat is not flush to the fuselage wall. This creates a little more sense of space. The inner windows are much larger than the outer windows.

What has Emirates done with its new plane? Well it is like the old TV series Upstairs Downstairs. And never the two shall meet.

We were on A6-EDD - the fourth and most recently delivered of the Emirates 380 fleet.

Seats in Economy are 3-4-3; they are a little wider than on the 777; with a wider armrest between the seats. The seats are firm (hard). There is no leg rest. There is a very limited seat recline. On an overnight flight I think these seats would be uncomfortable. Legroom is ok. 32 inches I assume.

All seats have a widescreen TV and the latest ICE entertainment (AVOD) system. There is plenty to watch. I think EK's movie choices are boring, safe and censored. CX has always had a much more interesting selection of movies. But there is plenty of TV to watch including new episodes from Dr. Who, Ashes to Ashes, Mad Men and Damages.

As well as forward and downward cameras there is a very unusual camera view looking forward from high on the tailplane.

Toilets are as cramped as ever. The crew working areas look reasonably spacious. The meals are standard EK food. Adequate. The coffee was cold.

EK's 380 crews are the first to wear the new uniform. Sorry - I dont like it. The chocolate suit for the guys looks very 1970s and the uniform on many of the girls looks creased and ill fitting. At least the old blue tabards (now gone) gave a little change of colour from the sand and brown colours that are everywhere else. 

If you are downstairs you most certainly may not go upstairs. And if you are upstairs why on earth would you want to go downstairs. It certainly puts "class" back into travel!!

That's about it. It really just feels like another airplane. Like a big double decker bus. Nothing flash. A workhorse.

Rich Dubai Flirts With Hard Times, But its Airline Is Still Flying High
Emirates Flight Attendants Live It Up; Champagne and Strict Rules on Weight
FARNAZ FASSIHI in the Wall Street Journal

11 December 2008

After checking that passengers' seat belts were fastened and the cabin was prepared for takeoff, Alex Rodriguez, a 26-year-old Spaniard and Emirates airline flight attendant, reached into her pocket for a tube of bright red lipstick. "I retouch it every 15 minutes," she said. "Otherwise, my supervisor will remind me."

The global economic slump is just now touching the glittering shores of the oil-rich Persian Gulf. But when it comes to the 10,000 flight attendants working for Emirates, the government-owned airline here, Dubai isn't cutting any corners. In an industry in a tailspin in much of the rest of the world, this city-state of man-made island developments, luxury resorts and an indoor ski slope has put some of the glamour back into air travel.

The glamour comes with a price. The airline is a demanding employer, flight attendants say. Tough rules are enforced, including some that would be deemed discriminatory in the West, such as weight requirements and a no-pregnancy policy for unwed women.

The carrier meticulously recruits attractive young men and women from around the world, like Ms. Rodriguez, a brunette with big green eyes and high cheek bones. As part of the airline's standard training, Ms. Rodriguez attended beauty and etiquette training. She's required to keep her makeup fresh, even on long flights. High-heels are a must when she's in uniform, even on the ground. Both men and women are expected to get manicures and facials.

Innocuous onboard flirting is condoned: Emirates' rules require attendants to politely accept a business card or phone number if it's proffered by a passenger. (The airline doesn't require the attendants to call or give out their own numbers, unless they want to.)

The uniform for women -- pillbox hat and beige scarf attached to one side, flowing sideways over the shoulder -- evokes traditional Persian and Turkish attire.
Earlier this month, dozens of uniformed and perfectly made-up Emirates flight attendants greeted and mixed with a star-studded, black-tie crowd, including Charlize Theron and Robert De Niro, at a $20 million grand-opening party for the new Atlantis hotel here. "Our crew always sticks out," says Ms. Rodriguez.

Many of the airline's recruits are from developing countries in Asia, Eastern Europe and across the Middle East. For them, the airline is a rare ticket to see the world in style, and for women from conservative countries like Iran and Egypt, it's a chance for independence. For many Western airline veterans drawn here, Emirates has so far been a safe haven from the economic storms buffeting the rest of the industry.

Layovers aren't so bad, either. "We work hard in the air, but we also party hard when we are on the ground," said Neha Masillamani, a flight attendant from New Delhi, as she got her hair styled and her nails done at a crowded Dubai salon popular with Emirates attendants.

Young, single crew members are paired with roommates and housed in blocks of luxury-apartment towers across Dubai. The night life is reminiscent of college. Ms. Masillamani recalled a recent party at a room in the 21st Century, on Dubai's neon-lighted main strip. Female crew members danced in bikinis while young men sprayed champagne.

At night, flight attendants flock to Zinc, a throbbing night club tucked into the ground floor of the Crowne Plaza hotel here. Male attendants, hair gelled in spikes and sporting tight-fitting designer shirts, earrings and leather necklaces, order pitchers of vodka mixes. The manager of the club estimates up to 70% of its revenue comes from Emirates' crew.

"It's so much fun, like being on a dreamy vacation. They take care of us here," said Jane Park, a 24-year-old from Korea, dressed in a tiny black dress and stiletto heels as she greeted her friends and colleagues.

There are limits. Despite its tolerant attitude toward foreigners, Dubai still harbors a conservative Muslim culture. If a single female attendant shows up pregnant, she's fired. Openly gay male attendants need not apply. Premarital sex and homosexuality are both illegal in Dubai.

"We aren't above the law here," says Kevin Griffiths, Emirates' senior vice president for cabin crew.

On duty, attendants are kept on a short leash. Crew members aren't allowed to drink in the 12 hours before a flight. Smoking and eating in uniform are prohibited. If an attendant gains too much weight, he or she is put on a diet by the airline's resident nutritionists.

A regulation manual prescribing everything from dress to posture on duty is also clear about the underwear women should have on under their light camel-color skirt and pants: white or beige, and "well fitted."

Emirates draws young recruits. The average age of a flight attendant is 26. By comparison, the average age of an attendant on a U.S. flight is in the mid-40s, according to a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants. According to the union's statistics, just 12% of members in the U. S. are under 30.

Emirates also prefers women to men: Seventy-five percent of total flight crew must be female. "It's a little stifling," says a 25-year-old European female attendant, who asked not to be named. "We are human beings, not just a marketing tool."

Emirates hasn't been immune to the current global economic downturn. The airlines posted an 88% drop in first half-year profit last month. But Valerie Tan, a company spokeswoman, said it is hiring more attendants to staff new routes to North and South America. And new planes are on order.

In the past 12 months, the airline says, it received 93,079 flight-attendant applications. Using photos, interviews, psychological profiling and group sessions with candidates, executives hire just 6% of job seekers. Recruiters hunt for promising hires around the world.

In some countries, applicants are put on a scale and weighed. (The practice is against the law in many Western countries because it's considered discriminatory, according to the company.)

After a six-week training course at Emirates headquarters near Dubai's sprawling airport, the airline graduates about 90 new flight attendants per week.

Michael Miller, a 29-year-old from Miami, has flown with Southwest Airlines Co. and JetBlue Airways Corp. He says Emirates pays less than his former employers, but the perks and lifestyle are better.

Emirates also offers free living accommodations and transport to and from work. Married personnel are offered either company housing or generous housing stipends. The crew also gets up to 50% off at local bars, restaurants and health clubs.

Emirates' routes -- including nonstop flights to Los Angeles and São Paulo -- beat the U.S. domestic circuit, where most young American attendants wind up. And Emirates puts its attendants up at luxury hotels and gives them generous per diem allowances while traveling.

"I would have to fly 30 years in the U.S. before I could travel like this," says a bronzed Mr. Miller, lounging with a blonde colleague at the rooftop pool of one of Emirates' high-rise apartment towers. "There is no comparison to what we get here," he said.
 

EK-EY merger rumours continue

29 November 2008

The Times newspaper - 29 November 2008

"You can be sure that the rumours have reached the boardrooms of airlines from London to Dallas to Chicago and beyond ... and you can be pretty sure what the reaction has been. Horror. Dismay. Alarm.

In an era when Western airlines are struggling, downsizing and preparing to battle for fewer customers in a shrinking economy, the chattering classes in the Gulf are talking up the prospect of a merger between Emirates Airlines and Etihad Airways.

No amount of denials has stopped speculation that has gripped the Gulf over the past month, speculation that the Government of Abu Dhabi, which owns Etihad, will buy a 30 per cent stake in Emirates, which is owned by Dubai, or that there will be a full merger of the carriers.

Doubt over Dubai's ability to meet its debt obligations has led many businessmen in the city-state to become convinced that the Government will have to sell assets such as Emirates to survive.

It is a huge asset. While Western airlines are shrinking, Emirates is on course to become the largest international airline in the world some time during the next decade, having carried 21 million passengers last year. It has $60 billion (£39 billion) of aircraft on order, including 58 of the double-decker Airbus 380s, and will begin A380 services from Dubai to London on Monday.

Etihad is also growing. Set up by Abu Dhabi only five years ago, it is already carrying six million passengers a year and it, too, has an order book that most Western airlines could only dream of.

At the Farnborough Air Show this year James Hogan, the chief executive, placed aircraft orders worth up to $43 billion.

Close rivals in more ways than one - they sit only 75km (45 miles) apart - the airline-building race between Dubai and Abu Dhabi is based on geography. The Gulf sits between Asia, Africa and Europe: it is estimated that 3.5billion people live within an eight-hour flight of Dubai.

Any two leading cities anywhere in the world can be connected via Dubai or Abu Dhabi, which makes the Gulf the perfect transit hub. Passengers flying from Glasgow or Dublin, for example, can fly direct to Dubai or Abu Dhabi and on to Sydney or Tokyo, rather than transiting through both Heathrow and Hong Kong or Bangkok.

By building up their airlines and their airports, the Gulf states believe that they can snap up this traffic. It is an ambitious plan, but if the Gulf carriers succeed, they will place the Middle East at the centre of people and trade movements in the 21st century. So great is their challenge that some European governments, keen to protect their flag-carriers, have blocked Emirates from gaining access to their cities.

“Our strategy is about reducing the length of journey times and making the trip from A to Z as smooth as possible,” Mr Hogan said. “If we can offer more efficient journeys, there will be a shift in traffic to our region.”

With Emirates, Etihad and Qatar all following essentially the same strategy, there are doubts that all three can achieve their goal, which is perhaps why the Emirates-Etihad rumours have seemed so plausible.

Mr Hogan said: “The Gulf carriers do have a similar strategy, but if you ask me who my competition is, I'd say European and Asian carriers who want passengers to go through London or Hong Kong and not the Gulf.”

There is a shadow over this grand plan. With the global economic slowdown taking hold, Emirates said last month that its profits had slumped 88 per cent, while Etihad's ambition to break even by 2010 looks optimistic.

Yet Tim Clark, president of Emirates, is not convinced that the downturn will have the devastating impact on the Gulf's carriers that some predict. “Perhaps I'm getting long in the tooth, but I've seen so many of these crises in the last 35 years that I'm not going to get into knee-jerk reactions,” he said.

“After the first Gulf war, we were the last carrier in the region standing. We've been through it before. Things will get worse, but by summer next year we should be through it.”

Although both Emirates and Etihad are stacked with executives from Britain and Australia, they have developed cultures that resonate with the region they are based in.

At Emirates, Mr Clark presides over a meeting of senior managers two or three times a week. There is no agenda, they simply talk - and argue - like a family sitting down to dinner. In a region where big families dominate politics and business, Emirates' corporate culture seems to reflect its environment.

Mr Hogan has tapped into another important feature of life in the Middle East: hospitality. Offering hospitality to a stranger is ingrained in Arabs and Etihad aspires to make that part of its culture, too. “I don't compare myself to other airlines, I compare us to the top hotels where service and hospitality are essential to success.”

As for rumours of their impending merger, Mr Clark was unequivocal: “What the ownership does with us is up to them, but we have been assured that no asset sale will take place.”

And yet ... the talk persists. European carriers such as British Airways, Air France and Lufthansa know already that Emirates and Etihad pose a significant challenge already. Whether they go on to do so as one huge combined entity may depend on how the credit crunch hits Dubai in the coming months.

-----

The captains' logbooks

Tim Clark

Emirates was founded by a small group of British expatriates in 1985 at the request of Dubai's ruling family. Tim Clark was one of that group, joining as head of airline planning, and he has been in Dubai ever since.

As president of one of the fastest-growing airlines in the world, Mr Clark is possibly the most influential person in the aviation industry.

The purchasing power of Emirates has allowed him to force Airbus and Boeing into designing aircraft that suit his needs rather than those of other carriers.

Mr Clark's magnificent office in the new Emirates headquarters overlooks Dubai's airport and he has been known to call up the air traffic control tower to demand that his aircraft be allowed to take off on time.

Mr Clark began his career with British Caledonian in 1972 and joined Gulf Air in 1975 in Bahrain. He is a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

James Hogan

The Australian-born James Hogan became chief executive of Etihad two years ago. He had previously been head of Gulf Air during a turbulent period for the Bahrain-based carrier, although Mr Hogan insists that his departure was amicable.

He joined Hertz Australia in 1984 and spent 13 years with the car rental company, which is where he says that he learnt to focus on customer service.

He joined bmi, the former British Midland, in 1997 and then had a brief period with Forte Hotels as worldwide sales director before returning to bmi as chief operating office in 1999.

Mr Hogan's management style could be described as “matey” and his generosity and concern for staff have made him a popular boss. He lives in Abu Dhabi and is a fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society."