Airline sets five million passenger target to coincide with major anniversary

Airline Emirates has marked 30 years of operations in the UK by announcing that it is on track to carry five million passengers between the UK and Dubai in the 2017/18 financial year, making it a record year for the airline.

This is an increase on the 2016/17 total for the airline, which saw 4.92 million passengers fly between the UK and Dubai during the last financial year.

The airline launched its first flight to Gatwick on July 6, 1987. Operated by an Airbus A310, Emirates carried just 87,000 passengers in its first year of UK operations and had only six aircraft in its entire fleet, offering UK passengers onward connections to six other destinations via Dubai.

Since then Emirates has added services to a further five UK gateways: Manchester (1990), Heathrow (1991), Birmingham (2000), Glasgow (2004) and Newcastle (2007). It operates a total of 126 non-stop flights per week from the UK to Dubai, and onward connections now span 140 passenger destinations across six continents.

Emirates’ relationship with the UK extends beyond merely offering flights to the country. Emirates employs 3,543 people from the UK including 1,892 cabin crew and 622 flight deck crew.

The top five destinations for UK travellers in the last 12 months are:
•    Dubai (direct flight from the UK)
•    Bangkok
•    Mauritius
•    Sri Lanka
•    Singapore

In addition to growing passenger numbers, Emirates SkyCargo flies 140,000 tonnes of cargo in and out of the UK in an average year. Key commodities transported include:
•    Scottish salmon
•    Whisky
•    Oilwell parts
•    Healthcare and pharma products
•    British food across the Middle East

Since April, Emirates SkyCargo has also carried 60 luxury vehicles on its freighter service from Heathrow, as part of the company’s SkyWheels offering.

It has also teamed up with Jaguar Land Rover to hep the manufacturer with the export of its vehicles to the United States.

Emirates SkyCargo, the freight division of Emirates, is operating one of its adapted freighter aircraft from Birmingham Airport as part of a new bespoke service especially for JLR.

The Boeing 777 Freighter, which has a capacity of more than 100 tonnes of cargo, is flying the vehicles straight into O’Hare International at Birmingham’s twin city of Chicago.

Emirates has also continuously upgraded the type of aircraft it uses throughout its 30 years in the UK. The airline currently operates the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger plane, on all six of its daily flights from Heathrow, all three from Gatwick and Manchester and one of its three services from Birmingham – with a second due to start in the autumn (although this will see the withdrawal of a service currently operated by one of its Boeing 777s).

The airline’s expansion to airports outside of London has been an important part of its UK growth strategy, with 18 million passengers travelling on flights between Dubai and Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle or Glasgow since 2004. This has been complemented by a strong performance from the London gateways, from which Emirates has collectively carried nearly 11 million passengers since 2012.

It has also invested more than £1m opening a new business lounge at Birmingham Airport.

Laurie Berryman, Vice President UK, Emirates, said: “The last 30 years have been an incredible journey for us at Emirates. We’ve grown our UK presence to serve more passengers with the latest, most comfortable wide-body aircraft, flying more people and more British exports to more places around the world.

“We are proud to have become an airline that is able to offer 18 daily flights for customers across the UK on modern, high-tech aircraft that passengers love to fly on, including 13 on the iconic A380. Customers can fly direct into Dubai – a cultural and business hub – but also connect on to hugely popular destinations like Bangkok and Australia.

“We’re looking forward to the next 30 years, helping passengers explore more of the world, and conversely welcoming inbound tourism to the beautiful UK.”

A 2015 study by London-based Frontier Economics found that Emirates’ multiple flights to and from the UK had a GDP impact of £2.7 billion and supported more than 29,700 direct, indirect and induced (DII) jobs in the UK. The airline also employs directly 432 people in its regional offices across the UK.

Meanwhile, more than 500 crew from the 18 daily flights between the UK and Dubai stay in the UK each night, contributing significantly to the local economies around each airport.