News
Emirates advocates UAE-India bilateral expansion and Etihad code shares extended
March 24th 2016
"We have ten cities in India. We are trying to expand as much as we can,” said Ahmed Khoory, senior vice-president, commercial operations West Asia and Indian Ocean for Emirates Airline at last week’s India Aviation Show. Read More » However, Emirates’ growth in India is curbed by bilateral capacity agreements, which limits the Dubai-based carrier to 65,000 seats on 185 weekly departures.
"If the bilateral agreement goes through, we can gain seats and cover most of the points in India. Our objective is to cover as much as we can," said Khoory. He added “even 100,000 seats is not enough” to meet demand.
Emirates’ deployment of the A380 to India is restricted with the carrier only permitted to operate the aircraft to Mumbai although both Delhi and Hyderabad airports could accommodate the aircraft.
Emirates’ UAE competitor, Etihad Airways, is permitted to fly 175 weekly flights to eleven cities in India. This grows to 250 services to 15 cities when combined with Etihad partner, Jet Airways’, network.
In separate updates, Etihad and airberlin have received approvals to continue codesharing on 76 routes in the IATA summer 2016 schedule, beginning March 27. The two carriers had applied for a total of 81 routes. The five rejected sectors are German domestic routes. The Etihad-airberlin partnership has been met by fierce opposition from the Lufthansa Group. Etihad holds a 29.21% stake in the struggling German carrier.
Etihad also has a 25.1% stake in Virgin Australia and this week agreed to back an A$425 million ($320 million) loan to boost Virgin’s balance sheet. The Qantas Airways rival took out an A$164 million loan in the first half of its financial year (whilst reporting a A$62.5 million profit) after unrestricted cash reserves shrank to A$544 million as of December 31, down from A$839 million the previous year. “The loan will be extended on arm’s length commercial terms for a period of twelve months,” Etihad said. Virgin’s other shareholders are Air New Zealand, Singapore Airlines and the UK’s Virgin Group.
Virgin Australia said it is reviewing its capital structure to ensure sustainable access to capital and improve cash flow generation and profitability. “The Group has secured loan facilities from its major shareholders that provide a flexible source of funding while the review is undertaken. This review will ensure the Virgin Australia Group has the best capital structure in place to achieve its strategic goals and generate long-term growth and value for shareholders,” Virgin Australia Group chairwoman, Elizabeth Bryan, said in a stock exchange statement.
