Emirates wants 30 more A380s

Emirates Airline wants to add 30 more Airbus A380s to its existing order for 90 planes, Bloomberg News has reported, citing President Tim Clark.

“We know what we want to do, we know where we could put more than 90 A380s today,” Clark reportedly said. “It’s a question of can we actually fit them in? The economics of Houston are very powerful. That would be an extremely attractive proposition.”

He reportedly said the airline was looking at “ways and means” to increase the order, but the lack of space at Dubai International Airport and curfews at destination airports is restricting it.

 “The airspace management around us, that’s proving to be quite complex,” Clark added about increasing competition from Etihad and Flydubai. “We’ve got many carriers in the UAE growing at quite a pace.”

In the US, Emirates has commercial relationships with JetBlue and Alaska Airlines and Clark said he aims to “push into other points” with the former. It is also looking for a deeper relationship with American Airlines. Clark further added that Emirates was not interested in investing in the Indian market.

Further, Clark said separately that he was interested in extending its relationship with Qantas so that passengers could fly around the world on an A380. It would work if Emirates is successful in launching a Los Angeles route, where passengers could link with Qantas.

 “If the timing is right and the two aircraft meet, with Qantas and Emirates you could go around the world with A380s,” he said. “I’m sure we could do trans-Pacific business on Qantas metal as part of this overall deal.”