Emirates boss backs Dubai to bounce back

LONDON – Emirates president Tim Clark has backed both the airline and Dubai to perform strongly as the world pulls out of recession.

Clark warned that those who were “disingenuous” about Dubai’s growth – particularly the UK press – “do so at their own peril”.

“It is an open economy and suffered in the recession. We have taken stock and slowed down but watch this space very carefully,” he told Jonathan Strickland, director of JLS Consulting, during a head-to-head debate at World Travel Market.

Clark said airlines should develop new routes in emerging economies if they wanted to survive.

He said Emirates had been able to harness the growth in such markets by developing new links between cities in China, India, South America and Africa.

“Africa is an enormously powerful and potentially very strong continent. The Chinese influence in Africa is more obvious.

“As we started to connect these points, people started to flow in ways that we had not seen before. More fool those who do not harness what is going on, including the European carriers.

Clark said Emirates’ seat factors remain “in the 80 percent region” albeit with a lower yield per seat and the carrier has taken 16 percent off its unit costs, thanks to a recruitment freeze and efficiency drive.

“We grew so rapidly that certain things got away from us and we found a pattern of legacy processes that were not efficient,” said Clark.

He admitted that delays by Airbus with deliveries of the new A380s were “a real blow”.

Emirates will have 15 A380s by December 2010 rather than by June and won’t be able to introduce the aircraft on the route to New York until next year.

Clark said the new airliner is a “crowd puller”, with passengers going out of their way to fly on it once they have experienced it, and load factors on the five A380s already delivered are about 90 percent.

“From an operations point of view, it is exceeding the numbers Airbus gave us – it is more fuel efficient,” he added.

“Airlines have shied away from ordering them but that will pick up as the global economy picks up.”