Hardly a Soft Landing

Airlines’ CEOs around the world have been assuring investors and shareholders of profits in 2017 but that is only half the story. A crisis – hopefully not of insurmountable proportions – is looming and it has been brought about by a whole lot of factors: the Brexit fallout, Trump and the US elections, upheavals in Europe, the turmoil in Turkey and more. Add to that the rising price of jet fuel and a grim picture emerges. Is the world of aviation ready?

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In January 2016, Sir Tim Clark, the CEO of Emirates Airlines in a piece in arabianbusiness.com said: “For Emirates, 2015 has been a year of considerable growth, and we won’t be slowing down in 2016.

“We added six new destinations in 2015, and we uplifted frequencies and added capacity to 40 cities. Our first Central American destination, Panama City – which launches in February 2016 – will uncover a network of over 20 Central and South American cities. It also closely follows the Panama Canal expansion, and we look forward to bringing markets closer than they have ever been before and supporting the country’s booming tourism industry.

“In 2015, we expanded our A380 network even further with four new destinations, and layered on more A380 services to nine other existing points, clearly demonstrating the popularity of our flagship wherever it’s deployed. We also introduced our two-class A380 with the capacity to carry 615 passengers on high-density routes such as Copenhagen and Bangkok. With 20 new A380s to arrive next year, the A380 will be introduced on even more destinations, offering greater choice for our customers.”