Emirates has restored 96% of its pre-conflict network, but passenger traffic remains at 93% of earlier levels, with corporate travel among the segments taking longer to recover, Essa Sulaiman Ahmad, the airline’s senior vice-president for West Asia and Indian Ocean, said.
The airline introduced greater flexibility in bookings to reassure customers during the disruption, Ahmad said, adding that he personally contacted travel-trade partners during the first five to six days of the conflict to reassure them and understand their requirements. passenger demand, particularly corporate travel, continues to be affected by uncertainty and travel advisories While operations have recovered substantially. Recovery has, however, been uneven across passenger segments.
The airline is currently operating flights to 144 destinations globally, compared with around 150 before the conflict began on February 28, Ahmad said. Because company travel advisories and restrictions under employee insurance policies continued to affect travel decisions, even when businesses wanted to resume normal operations, ahmad said corporate travellers were slower to return.
“We started giving more flexibility to doing our bookings,” he said, adding that the aim was to ensure passengers did not suffer if they had to cancel or change travel plans for operational reasons.
The move comes as the airline seeks to expand its premium offering and strengthen connectivity through Dubai, which connects passengers to around 140 destinations across its network. Delhi will become Emirates’ third A380 destination in India, after Mumbai and Bengaluru.
