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Emirates Airline cancels Yinchuan and Zhengzhou
October 5th 2018
A capacity rationalization drive at Dubai’s Emirates Airline continues. Read More » After reducing frequencies on a number of long-haul services and terminating services from Dubai to Multan and Mashad, Emirates this week removed its three times a week Dubai-Yinchuan-Zhengzhou B777-200LR triangular route from GDSs.
Emirates’ last flight to Yinchuan and Zhengzhou will depart Dubai on November 15. The airline launched the route in May 2016 and was the only global carrier to offer long-haul services from both Mainland cities.
At the 2016; launch, chairman of Emirates Group and Emirates Airline, Sheikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said the route would provide citizens in both cities with convenient and fast connections to destinations in the Middle East, Africa and Europe via Dubai. He added Emirates was “confident” the new air transport links would “help boost trade and tourism flows to the growing central and western parts of China”.
Emirates is not the only international airline facing stiff headwinds in China. China’s aviation industry is booming, but the Mainland market is infamous for low yields across all classes. Airlines have been struggling to produce sustainable yields on flights to Beijing and Shanghai, so it is not surprising to see Emirates fail in third-tier markets such as Yinchuan and Zhengzhou.
Emirates will continue flying to Beijing and Shanghai twice daily and seven times a week to Guangzhou.
During the northern summer, several global carriers announced route cancellations to China. American Airlines said it would discontinue Shanghai-Chicago after previously announcing the cancellation of Beijing-Chicago. American said the China services were “unprofitable and simply not sustainable in this high fuel cost environment” when there are opportunities to be successful in other markets.
Hawaiian Airlines said it would discontinue its Honolulu-Beijing flights, United Airlines cancelled its routes to Hangzhou and Xian and Delta Air Lines is pulling out of Hong Kong-Seattle, also because of low load factors.
