Emirates mulls fifth freedom flights from Europe to Mexico, US
Emirates is considering multiple offers from Europe to open up new ‘fifth freedom’ flights to service the US and Central America.
In particular, it has held talks with Swiss authorities over the possibility of launching services from Zurich to Mexico City.
Emirates president Tim Clark said that while the airline has yet to “solicit” requests to open up such a route fearing the “disruptive” effect on the market, it is an option for the future.
“The opportunities are there for us, we’ve had multiple offers,” Clark said. “The Swiss have made it absolutely clear that they’d like us to fly to the States from [Switzerland].
“Whether we’re going to do that or not is neither here nor there but it’s interesting to note that with European pressures mirroring a little bit of what’s going on in the US, many of the constituent parts of the European Union (EU) have come to us and said, would you operate on a fifth freedom basis across to the US.
“So they want us to go there, we haven’t solicited a request for us to go there, but they see that we add value to what they’re doing and they’d like us to be there.”
Fifth freedom rights allow an airline to fly between two foreign countries so long as the flight originates or ends in the airline’s home country.
Emirates already offers fifth freedom services between Milan and New York, Sydney and Bangkok, Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur and others.
It has been reported that the UAE is seeking to establish a hub in Budapest from which to service flights from central Europe to the US as an extension of its daily Dubai-Budapest service.
Saif Al Suwaidi, director general of the UAE’s General Civil Aviation Authority, reportedly told The National in an interview in March that the country was seeking to secure fifth freedom rights for services to two points beyond Hungary.
Clark told reporters on Tuesday that he was not aware of such a pending deal.
“Someone mentioned Hungary before – that’s an interesting one, I haven’t heard that before,” he said. “But I’m quite sure…I was in Budapest just last week – it’s a fabulous city - and certainly they could do with more air services, and there have been offers made to us.”
However, he echoed earlier comments made by Emirates chairman and CEO Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum that Emirates was focusing on direct operations in the short term.
Clark said: “As Sheikh Ahmed said, we are concentrating on a point-to-point operation at the moment. Our business model hinges on that and it’s important that we stay true to that – and we know the disruptive effect of fifth freedom operations, particularly with our American friends.
“But that’s not to say we wouldn’t consider this more seriously in the future.”
At a press conference to mark publication of Emirates’ 2015/16 annual results, Clark also said that negotiations were still ongoing to secure an effective codeshare agreement for its planned Dubai to Panama service, which was originally scheduled to launch this year.
“We’re still working on it, it’s still a work in progress,” he said. “It’s not going as quickly as I would have liked – trying to stitch together 13 countries in a bilateral and all the other bits and pieces is difficult – but we’re getting there.”
The delays are due to ongoing government bureaucracy, he said.
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