Airline News
Emirates’ Asia traffic affected by Ebola, manages TAAG
October 14th 2014
Emirates Airline (EK) president and chief executive officer (CEO) Tim Clark has told Reuters that demand for flights to Africa from Asia has fallen due to concerns over the Ebola virus. Read More »
"There are indications that demand in the east is coming off a little bit because of the perception that Ebola is Africa-wide," Clark said.
EK’s Dubai hub is a major stop-over point for Asian customers travelling to Africa.
As reported by This Week in Asia-Pacific Aviation, EK last week announced a service reduction on the Dubai – Hong Kong route from October 8 through to November 30, as the airline will deploy a smaller A340-300 replacing a B777-300ER on one of its three daily rotations.
The slump in demand comes at a time when EK – already the largest non-African carrier into the continent with 69,000 weekly seats to 22 destinations – has been bullish about expansion in Africa.
"We're only half way there," Clark told the Africa Global Business Forum in Dubai.
Mozambique, Benin, Togo, Equatorial Guinea and Congo are all potential future destinations as EK plans to increase its investment in its fleet in Africa from $7 billion today to up to $12 billion within a "few years," Clark added.
Further strengthening ties on the continent, EK last week announced a deal with the Angolan government to manage the country’s national airline TAAG Angola Airlines for the following 10 years.
