Emirates to acquire additional aircraft ahead of traffic recovery

Emirates President, Tim Clark, announced the carrier is considering plans to acquire additional aircraft to prepare for a global traffic recovery (Emirates Business 24/7, 11-Nov-2009). The carrier has a letter of intent (LoI) with Airbus for 30 A330-300s and 30 A350XWBs, which is "still alive and not withdrawn". Emirates expects to have 15 A380s in its fleet by Jun-2010.

Emirates: "We are looking at it…we are making the assessments, but clearly with the growth we have and the profit we made, there is nothing to suggest after the recession we shouldn't move rapidly. We should have had 15 [A380 aircraft] by Jun-2010…we are getting two in Dec-2009 and then the remaining eight between January and November next year, so one or two are being pushed back. It's affecting what we could have done, but physically they can't get it out," Tim Clark, President. Source: Reuters, 11-Nov-2009.