Emirates President Tim Clark to step down after three decades of service

Dubai’s Emirates has confirmed that Tim Clark will retire as the president of the airline at the end of June 2020 after more than three decades.

Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum said in an internal memo to staff that Clark would stay on as an adviser to the company, said a Reuters report.

“Through wars, economic recessions, disasters natural or manmade, and various industry upheavals, Tim has ably steered and grown Emirates to its standing today as the world’s largest international airline, and an eminent player in the global airline industry,” Sheikh Ahmed said in the memo.

“His achievements are too many to recount individually, but they will all be remembered,” he said in the memo.

Clark, 70, joined the airline as a founding member in 1985, having previously worked at Gulf Air and Caledonian Airways. He became Emirates’ president in 2003.

Knighted in 2014 for his services to British prosperity and the aviation industry, Clark has since been referred to by many in the industry, including those at Emirates, as “Sir Tim”.

Launched in 1985 with aircraft leased from Pakistan International Airlines, Emirates today operates a fleet of 270 aircraft to 159 destinations. It carried close to 60 million passengers in its last financial year, and operates the single largest fleet of Airbus A380 superjumbo jets.