Airlines
Emirates considers premium economy amid slumping yields
September 15th 2016
Emirates Airline is looking to boost its ancillary revenues, and it is taking a serious look at introducing premium economy as it battles falling yields, its president, Tim Clark, told an aviation conference in London last week. Read More » “We would need to see how it would work in our business model, how we would need to differentiate our existing product,” he said, adding retrofitting Emirates’ 250-strong fleet with a premium economy product would be “no easy task.”
However, “we cannot sit back and wait for things to get better," Clark cautioned. This is very similar to what he told delegates at the IATA AGM in June when he warned that “high end stuff is not going to come through as it did in the good old days “, dealing a severe blow to yields.
As such, aside from premium economy, Emirates is considering introducing charges for seat selection and additional baggage fees, Clark said.
Emirates posted record profits for the 2015/16 financial year, with earnings up 56% year-on-year to $1.6 billion, and passenger numbers up 8% to 51.9 million, while capacity grew by 11%.
