Emirates Airlines
Hub of the World
Emirates is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable airlines in the world. Yet the secret of its success is largely unknown outside the Arab world. Donald N. Sull, Sumantra Ghoshal and Felipe Monteiro unveil some of the mystery that shrouds a national carrier that enjoys no state handouts – and treats its employees as a giant family.
The
ess than two decades after its foundation, Emirates placed the biggest order in civil aviation history, for $19 billion worth of aircraft. This at a time when the industry was facing a global slump, which Emirates defied with a massive 74 per cent increase in net profits to $429 million in the financial year ending April 2004. Despite 9/11, two Gulf wars and escalating fuel costs, Emirates has enjoyed a 25 per cent annual growth rate since its founding in 1985 and has not posted a loss in the past eighteen years. In 2004, the airline was among the twenty largest global carriers in terms of passenger miles flown.
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policy granted foreign airlines the same access and privileges as Emirates. Competing under Dubai’s open skies policy from its onset toughened the fledgling carrier, and according to Flanagan “has helped us to become a carrier which can compete with the best of the world’s airlines”. Much of Emirates’ success is due to the Al Maktoum’s sheikhdom’s ambitious strategy of reinventing Dubai as a modern hub of tourism and commerce in the Middle East. Almost entirely newly built – buildings over 20 years old are bought for their land value, ripped down and re-built ten times the size – Dubai has strategically re-invented itself
Best Practice
When Airbus delivers its 555-passenger A380 aircraft, Emirates will take delivery of 45 of the double-decker planes, by far the largest order to date totaling nearly as many A380s as Lufthansa (15), Qantas (12), Singapore Airlines (10) and Air France (10) combined. Most impressively, Emirates has achieved this enviable track record without direct
Emirates is one of the fastest-growing and most profitable airlines in the world. Yet the secret of its success is largely unknown outside the Arab world. Donald N. Sull, Sumantra Ghoshal and Felipe Monteiro unveil some of the mystery that shrouds a national carrier that enjoys no state handouts – and treats its employees as a giant family.
The
ess than two decades after its foundation, Emirates placed the biggest order in civil aviation history, for $19 billion worth of aircraft. This at a time when the industry was facing a global slump, which Emirates defied with a massive 74 per cent increase in net profits to $429 million in the financial year ending April 2004. Despite 9/11, two Gulf wars and escalating fuel costs, Emirates has enjoyed a 25 per cent annual growth rate since its founding in 1985 and has not posted a loss in the past eighteen years. In 2004, the airline was among the twenty largest global carriers in terms of passenger miles flown.
L
policy granted foreign airlines the same access and privileges as Emirates. Competing under Dubai’s open skies policy from its onset toughened the fledgling carrier, and according to Flanagan “has helped us to become a carrier which can compete with the best of the world’s airlines”. Much of Emirates’ success is due to the Al Maktoum’s sheikhdom’s ambitious strategy of reinventing Dubai as a modern hub of tourism and commerce in the Middle East. Almost entirely newly built – buildings over 20 years old are bought for their land value, ripped down and re-built ten times the size – Dubai has strategically re-invented itself
Best Practice
When Airbus delivers its 555-passenger A380 aircraft, Emirates will take delivery of 45 of the double-decker planes, by far the largest order to date totaling nearly as many A380s as Lufthansa (15), Qantas (12), Singapore Airlines (10) and Air France (10) combined. Most impressively, Emirates has achieved this enviable track record without direct