The Emirates president, Tim Clark, said the world’s biggest long-haul airline faces a “gathering storm” as a new generation of low-cost carriers targets the intercontinental routes around which it has built its business.
Emirates sees threats across all markets from rivals spanning Norwegian Air Shuttle to the Scoot unit of Singapore Airlines, Mr Clark said on Thursday in Berlin. The carrier may also need to establish a short-haul fleet as Middle East nations that it has struggled to serve begin to open up, he said, while cautioning that the decision will be one for his successor.
“The dynamic is changing in the Middle East with regards to access to new markets,” the executive said in Berlin, where travel industry executives have gathered for the ITB tourism fair.
“Our business model was set in the late 1980s, when access was denied to us by many places in the region.”
Mr Clark, 67, who has run Emirates since 2003, said that while he sees no immediate switch away from an all-wide-body fleet, “others coming behind may take a different view”. He said it would be “remiss” of him to commit to a particular plan and that “business doesn’t stop when I go”.
Emirates has established itself as the world’s biggest carrier serving international routes by transforming Dubai into a transfer hub for flights between the Americas and Europe and Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.
While Norwegian Air has focused its long-haul efforts chiefly on transatlantic flights, it also has a hub in Bangkok, while Scoot plans to begin flights to Europe this summer starting with a service to Athens – a city that is also part of the Emirates network – in June.
“At the back end of ‘90s I did a paper on long-haul low-cost,” Mr Clark said. “Everyone laughed at me, but what I predicted then has finally started to happen. We have players in all arenas – Europe, America, Asia. It’s a gathering storm.”
The executive said that the situation is being complicated by the response of established network carriers such as the British Airways owner IAG, which plans to start lower-cost flights using Airbus A330 wide-body jets, initially out of Barcelona, and Lufthansa’s Eurowings arm, which is expanding as fast in long-haul routes as it is on intra-European services.
After a “few years of instability,” increasing demand for intercontinental services should be sufficient to support much of the expansion “as the pie grows,” Mr Clark said.
Low-cost carriers specialising in short-haul routes are also likely to play a bigger role in linking up with long-haul operators, he said. Ryanair already plans to provide feeder traffic to Norwegian.
Political and socioeconomic upheavals have created an environment in which running a global airline has become increasingly challenging, Mr Clark said. While a decade ago a major carrier might have faced disruptive events a couple of times a year, “the pace of change is accelerating and quite destabilising”.
* Bloomberg
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The specs
Engine: 2-litre or 3-litre 4Motion all-wheel-drive Power: 250Nm (2-litre); 340 (3-litre) Torque: 450Nm Transmission: 8-speed automatic Starting price: From Dh212,000 On sale: Now
Company Profile
Name: Thndr
Started: 2019
Co-founders: Ahmad Hammouda and Seif Amr
Sector: FinTech
Headquarters: Egypt
UAE base: Hub71, Abu Dhabi
Current number of staff: More than 150
Funds raised: $22 million
Avatar%3A%20The%20Way%20of%20Water
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EDirector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJames%20Cameron%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESam%20Worthington%2C%20Zoe%20Saldana%2C%20Sigourney%20Weaver%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E3.5%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Family reunited
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and studied English literature before working as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency in 2003.
She moved to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.
She came to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study a master's in communication management and met her future husband through mutual friends a month later.
The couple were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their daughter was born in June 2014.
She was held in her native country a year later.
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THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
The specs
Engine: 2.7-litre 4-cylinder Turbomax
Power: 310hp
Torque: 583Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh192,500
On sale: Now
The%20Beekeeper
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Company%20Profile
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Blackpink World Tour [Born Pink] In Cinemas
Starring: Rose, Jisoo, Jennie, Lisa
Directors: Min Geun, Oh Yoon-Dong
Rating: 3/5
The specs
Engine: Long-range single or dual motor with 200kW or 400kW battery
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
Max touring range: 620km / 590km
Price: From Dh250,000 (estimated)
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last 16, first leg
Liverpool v Bayern Munich, midnight (Wednesday), BeIN Sports
What is graphene?
Graphene is extracted from graphite and is made up of pure carbon.
It is 200 times more resistant than steel and five times lighter than aluminum.
It conducts electricity better than any other material at room temperature.
It is thought that graphene could boost the useful life of batteries by 10 per cent.
Graphene can also detect cancer cells in the early stages of the disease.
The material was first discovered when Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov were 'playing' with graphite at the University of Manchester in 2004.
MATCH INFO
Chelsea 1
Alonso (62')
Huddersfield Town 1
Depoitre (50')
Company%20Profile
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The specs: 2018 Maserati GranTurismo/GranCabrio
Price, base Dh485,000 (GranTurismo) and Dh575,000 (GranCabrio)
Engine 4.7L V8
Transmission Six-speed automatic
Power 460hp @ 7,000rpm
Torque 520Nm @ 4,750rpm
Fuel economy, combined 14.3L (GranTurismo) and 14.5L (GranCabrio) / 100km
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League semi-final, first leg
Bayern Munich 1
Kimmich (27')
Real Madrid 2
Marcelo (43'), Asensio (56')
Company name: Farmin
Date started: March 2019
Founder: Dr Ali Al Hammadi
Based: Abu Dhabi
Sector: AgriTech
Initial investment: None to date
Partners/Incubators: UAE Space Agency/Krypto Labs
Virtual banks explained
What is a virtual bank?
The Hong Kong Monetary Authority defines it as a bank that delivers services through the internet or other electronic channels instead of physical branches. That means not only facilitating payments but accepting deposits and making loans, just like traditional ones. Other terms used interchangeably include digital or digital-only banks or neobanks. By contrast, so-called digital wallets or e-wallets such as Apple Pay, PayPal or Google Pay usually serve as intermediaries between a consumer’s traditional account or credit card and a merchant, usually via a smartphone or computer.
What’s the draw in Asia?
Hundreds of millions of people under-served by traditional institutions, for one thing. In China, India and elsewhere, digital wallets such as Alipay, WeChat Pay and Paytm have already become ubiquitous, offering millions of people an easy way to store and spend their money via mobile phone. Indonesia, Vietnam and the Philippines are also among the world’s biggest under-banked countries; together they have almost half a billion people.
Is Hong Kong short of banks?
No, but the city is among the most cash-reliant major economies, leaving room for newcomers to disrupt the entrenched industry. Ant Financial, an Alibaba Group Holding affiliate that runs Alipay and MYBank, and Tencent Holdings, the company behind WeBank and WeChat Pay, are among the owners of the eight ventures licensed to create virtual banks in Hong Kong, with operations expected to start as early as the end of the year.
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COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
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COMPANY%20PROFILE
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