Emirates Airline is close to a substantial aircraft order of as many as 100 to 150 jets as it prepares to replace its fleet of Airbus SE A380 double-decker planes due to come offline early next decade, President Tim Clark said.
The airline is “close to doing something” that will involve buying more Airbus A350s and Boeing Co. 777s, and “maybe” also Boeing’s smaller 787 Dreamliner, Clark said in an interview with Bloomberg TV in Istanbul at the IATA annual general meeting on Tuesday.
Read more: Airbus Predicts Supply Crunch With Widebodies as Travel Rebounds
“We will be making orders fairly soon,” Clark said. The airline will seek to place the orders for delivery starting 2027 through 2033, with the A380 planes exiting the operation in 2032. “It could come next week, it could come at the Dubai Air Show,” he said.
Clark said demand for flying is the strongest it’s been in a long time, with the possibility of some “tapering” toward the middle of next year. Emirates’ president has built the Dubai-based carrier into the world’s largest long-haul airline, commanding a fleet of more than 100 Airbus A380s that use Dubai as a global hub.
Boeing and Airbus are enjoying a surge in demand for aircraft, with substantial orders being placed by the likes of Air India Ltd. to newcomer Riyadh Air, and interest from Turkish Airlines for several hundred new planes. All that’s placing pressure on other airlines to buy.
But production slots for both widebody and narrowbody jets are in short supply through the rest of the decade. Manufacturers also face criticism for over-promising and under-delivering. Emirates has been waiting for more than five years for Boeing’s 777X, for example.
The long-time Emirates president said aircraft-makers had to take a share of the responsibility and not just blame supply chains for unfolding delays that airline executives have said at IATA could last years.
Emirates already has 50 A350s, 117 of the 777Xs and 30 787-9s on order. Altogether, it has a fleet of over 260 aircraft, including around 115 A380s,
Clark also said at a breakfast event later Tuesday that first class as an offering remains “hugely important for us,” adding Emirates will have a first class in all of its new fleet except the A350s.
Emirates will host IATA’s 80th annual meeting in Dubai next June.
--With assistance from Siddharth Philip and Angela Feliciano.
