There is economic growth in Africa
The Divisional Senior Vice-President in charge of Commercial Operations West, Emirates Airlines, Mr Hubert Frach, has expressed confidence in doing business in Africa, saying there is economic growth on the continent.
Advertisement
He said operating in a country depended on a number of factors, including available traffic, service data, the general business environment, demand levels and the community of nationals in that country, saying there were already over 500,000 Africans living in Dubai.
Mr Frach noted that Emirates Airline, which is fully owned by the government of Dubai but operated on a commercial basis, flew to 22 passenger destinations in Africa, including Accra, and five cargo points.
Briefing journalists on the operations of the airline in Dubai recently, he said the African destinations included Abuja, Abidjan, Cairo, Dakar, Durban, Johannesburg, Nairobi, Tunisia and Harare.
He said Emirates’ destinations in Africa were served with a mix of long haul aircraft, including the Airbus 330-200, Airbus 340 and Boeing 777.
He mentioned hundreds of channels of on-demand in-flight entertainment, as well as luxurious seats in the First Class Section, spacious seating in the Business Class and extra leg room for the Economy Class.
He noted that there were facilities to send and receive emails and text messages and make phone calls.
“Our highly trained, multinational and multi-lingual crew will deliver our award-winning services, giving passengers the feeling that they have ‘come home’ when they board our modern aircraft,” he said.
Emirates gateway destination
Mr Frach announced that in February next year, Emirates would launch its longest non-stop flight in the world, covering 17 hours, 35 minutes in the West-bound direction in Panama City as the airline’s first gateway destination in Central America.
He said Emirates operated over 1,800 flights per week from its hub at the Dubai International Airport.
He disclosed that Emirates’ global network spanned 147 cities in 79 countries/territories, including 15 cargo-only destinations, namely, Viracopos, Eldoret, Hanoi, Liege, Lilongwe, Zaragoza, Djibouti, Chittagong, Kano, Quito, Atlanta, Mexico City, Basel, Ouagadougou and Columbus, facilitating trade and tourism links for the UAE and connecting the world with just one stop via Dubai.
This year, he said, Emirates announced six new passenger destinations to Bali, Indonesia, which was launched on June 3; Multan, Pakistan, launched on August 1; Orlando, USA, and Mashad, Iran, September 1; and Bologna, Italy, November 3.
He said last year, the airline added seven new destinations to its global route network. They were Taipei, Taiwan, February 10; Boston, USA, March 10; Abuja, Nigeria, August 1; Chicago, USA, August 5;, Oslo, Norway, September 2; Brussels, Belgium, September 5, and Budapest, Hungary, October 27.
In 2013, he said, the airline added eight new passenger destinations, including Warsaw, Poland, launched on February 6; Algiers, Algeria, March 1; Haneda, Japan, June 3; Stockholm, Sweden, September 4; Milan, Italy, and New York, USA, October 1; Conakry, Guinea, October 27; Sialkot, Pakistan, November 5, and Kabul, Afghanistan, December 4.
He said the airline, which was launched in 1985 with two leased aircraft from a rudimentary airport, now had over 170 aircraft in its rapidly expanding fleet, a mix of the latest wide-body Airbus and Boeing aircraft, as well as Dubai’s state-of-the- art Emirates Terminal Three which is used solely for the airline’s flights.
For 2013 and 2014, he said, Emirates recorded a net profit of US$22.5 billion and made US$24.2 billion net profit for 2014-2015.
Mr Frach disclosed that the airline carried 2.3 million tonnes of cargo for the 2013-2014 period and 2.4 million tonnes for 2014-2015.
