Emirates is one of the safest and most reputable airlines and it has grown massively over the past few years.
The company is always seeking to expand, and it entered a deal with Airbus for the aircraft manufacturer to deliver 65 Airbus A350-900 planes by August 2024. However, this was not achieved, and this article will examine what happened and what the future looks like for the Emirates and Airbus partnership.
The Airbus A350 is not a big plane by any standard, and it slots nicely into the Airbus line-up right next to the 777-200LR. This new aeroplane does not have first class, but Emirates says its long-haul passengers will be comfortable enough, or even able to complete the tasks on their work planner on flights that might last as long as 15 hours.
Emirates, through its communications department, says it aims to use its new A380 aircraft for ultra-long-haul destinations. These include New Zealand, Australia, Latin America and North America.
While its flights to Africa are not long-haul ones, the company might consider using these new and safer aircraft for these routes, according to some speculative experts. However, Emirates has not commented on this and will likely continue using smaller, more efficient, existing planes for these routes.
Emirates says being able to use this plane for these destinations means the new aircraft is central to its expansion plans well into the next few decades.
Emirates has been working with Airbus for several years to acquire the Airbus A350 and use it in some of the new routes the airline company was considering. After the two companies signed the deal, Airbus agreed to deliver the first batch of aeroplanes in August 2024.
However, there have been delays, with Emirates saying that Airbus will deliver the aeroplanes in late October. In an August interview, Adel Al Redha, Emirates' deputy president and chief operations officer, said the aircraft was in the final stages of testing and that things were progressing as expected despite the delays.
He also said that the company expected some delays and glitches because this is a new aircraft. Mr Redha confirmed he understood Airbus could be having issues coordinating suppliers and connecting many moving parts to make the delivery happen.
Emirates has been eying a continuation of Edinburgh flights for a few years because it sees them as a profitable and strategic addition to its flight portfolio. The company seeks to start flying to the Scottish capital after more than four years using its new sub-fleet of Airbus A350s.
The company hoped that it could start flying to the city in October, but this latest delay means it can only begin flying the route in December. The plan was to restart these flights in November, and this was pushed to December 2nd. However, another delay means the company will start flying the A380 to the city on December 16th.
Emirates says it was already in talks with Scotland to restart its flights to the country in November, and it wants to honour this arrangement. The final compromise is that the airline will restart flights to the city in November using the Boeing 777.
Scotland and Edinburgh, on the other hand, become the launch cities for Emirates' new plane on this route in December.
Emirates says after this launch and receiving more A380s, the airline will add more flights to Edinburgh and destinations like India and the Persian Gulf.
Emirates has also said that it is interested in the larger variant of this plane, the A350-1000. However, Airbus is not confident about the durability and reliability of the Rolls-Royce engines it will likely use on the planes.
The logical step, the company says, is to continue using the Trent XWB-97 engines and to continue improving the durability, reliability, and performance of all engines its planes use.
When exploring why the delay happened, we can glean some insight from what Adel Al Redha said in the August interview. He hinted that the delays could be related to parts and suppliers, and Wouter Van Wersch, Airbus' executive vice president of international has confirmed this to be the case.
Speaking to The National, Mr Wersch said they are working hard to deal with issues related to suppliers and parts. He also said the company's aircraft deliveries fell by about 9% in September 2024 compared to the same time last year.
The company only shipped 50 planes this month, with other sources saying the company and its supplier are struggling to meet demand.
The airline industry is facing some turbulent times right now, specifically with the delivery of new planes. This is one of the reasons why the delivery of new A380s to Emirates has been postponed to early November. Regardless, Emirates says these planes are part of its strategic plans and that it will go ahead with the first flight to Edinburgh on the planes in December.