Emirates Airlines Case Study

EMERGENCE OF THE THREE MAJOR CARRIERS
Figure 1.

Growth of Emirates through years

Gulf Air reduced its number of weekly flights from Dubai from 80 to 39 in 1984. In response to this, Sheikh Mohamed bin Rashid Al Maktoum decided to create a new airline and thus began the era of Emirates airlines.
Emirates was established in 1985 with two Boeing 727s from the royal fleet and an Airbus and a Boeing leased from Pakistan International Airways(PIA). It was initially the flag carrier of UAE. It carried 86,000 passengers in its first year of operation. Emirates is the classic example of a true hub and spokes system. It relies on connecting the world via Dubai.
Emirates first flight was from Dubai to Karachi on October 25, 1985. The Royal family
The brand Emirates got so popular that people started relating Gulf region to Emirates. This was the aim as well. A well created branding strategy and best utilization of geographical advantages were the reason for Emirates success. When carriers in Gulf started reducing fleet and flights, Emirates was adding more. This was a clear strategy from their part from the very first. Aggressive marketing was another strategy of theirs. Instead of concentrating on marketing Emirates, they focused on marketing Dubai as an International Shopping and tourist destination. This brought in more passengers from worldwide increasing passenger traffic for Emirates. Dubai Shopping festival in winter brings in huge number of passengers these days and also Dubai Summer Surprises Festival helps boost the summer traffic. This strategy of theirs also caused the construction of Dubai mall, launch of artificial Ski Dubai slope, Burj Dubai and the most important was the tallest manmade structure in the world, Burj Khalifa. This all together caused an increased flow of visitors from 400,000 in 1985 to 3 million in mid 2000s and 5.8 million in the first six months of 2014 alone.In 2004, Emirates signed a 100 million dollar deal with Arsenal, the English Premier League football team. This was part of their branding strategy. The deal also included naming rights to its new stadium for the next 15 years and shirt sponsorship for eight
The growth of Emirates also created a lot of accusations. Lufthansa and Air Canada were few of them who claimed that Emirates has unfair advantages. Lufthansa forced German government not to give free reign to Emirates. Air Canada also objected to Emirates in Canada. But the rapid growth occurring suggest that Emirates is capable of overcoming all allegations and continue the growth spurt.
Growth of Qatar Airways through years
Emirates made Dubai well known worldwide. This gave ideas to the leaders from other Gulf countries. The Qatari leaders then decided that even they need an airline of their own. Qatar Airways was thus established in 1994, carrying the state flag of Qatar. They also followed Emirates by ordering large numbers of new aircrafts. In 2014, Qatar took delivery of the first A350. The Qatar Airways fleet numbers consequently rose from 4 in 1997 to 28 in 2003 to 50 in 2006 to 146 by 2014.

The number of destinations served also grew rapidly and so does the passenger traffic. Though Qatar Airways followed Emirates in ordering number of aircrafts, they dint try to promote Qatar as a tourist destination. Their main focus was on the business customers.