FD1971

Not being able to expand never hurt anyone...

That was expected.




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FD1971

Considering the amount of migration workers they need in Qatar, AD und Dubai, it is certainly a logical consequence.

Could you alaborate how to make money with the fares those poor guys pay on average.

Please, I would love to read it.

NOIR

Temporarily not really

lokijuh

Not that it make an overall difference to their profitability is it the "poor guys" that are paying for their fares or is it their employers? I think in SIN, labourers pay their own way, but for domestic helpers, their employers are required to pay for airfares for bi-annual home leave. Of course the ME is famous for lack of protection for foreign workers, so expect there employers pay for nothing ...

Worcester

Does make you wonder though when you read about the conditions of the workers building the Qatar football stadiums. A team of BBC reporters were recently arrested for talking to people they were not meant to.

It seems that companies there are not expected to oporate in a transparent way, and those who raise concerns are arrested or worse.

I wonder therefore what the safety culture is like at these airlines.

irishguy28

The ME3, and other airlines, have been constrained by bilateral air services agreements in most of their markets for most of their existence.

And it hasn't stopped them growing, or re-negotiating the Air Services Agreements.

irishguy28

Then what about this FD1971? No publications, no analysis, no quotations - no qualifications either, from what we've seen.

GUWonder

Your post characterizing your posts again? Reads like it?

The GCC employers pay my Indian acquaintances for repeat annual trips to India or anywhere else they have family residence; and some of them are entitled to premium cabin trips. They haven't had an issue, but these are professional or senior managerial/advisory positions rather than unskilled/low-skilled labor jobs. A lot of places in the world are known for lack of protection of foreign workers, and that includes US and EU places. And some places in the EU want to make it worse for foreign workers; for example, the UK wants to seize foreign workers wages if they happen to have some kind of change of immigration status while working in the UK.

For low-skilled/unskilled labor, the UAE and QR working conditions on average are comparable or superior to what they have in comparable jobs in their home countries; and they get paid far more for it than they do in their home countries.

There are no saints when it comes to governments. For example, if I try to convey certain US-acquired information while in the UK about the UK's/UK companies' violation of privacy, the UK may arrest me too. If I try to fly out of Australia with some kind of encryption software or US-allowed media, is that potential grounds for arrest in Australia? Yes.

Enzokk

If we were discussing Qatar and Qatar Airways, this would be applicable. Seeing as we are discussing Emirates only, I don't think there is much you can read from what happens in Qatar.

You were the one talking about subsidies and how all airlines used subsidies to survive. The comment then was, well if all airline use subsidies, why is it a problem for the ME3? You will note the "if" in the previous sentence. How you are seeing this as posters agreeing with you that, yes you have changed our minds and we agree with you, I don't know...

The problem still, other than words from your side, is that you haven't backed up anything that you have posted with articles that we can read to make up our own minds. The US3 paper isn't a credible source to show that EK is a scam. We do have IAG that commented that the paper is not accurate in its representation.

So please tell me, who should I believe. A poster on FT telling me he is an expert and I should just trust him, without any previous posts linking articles to prove his points (about the discussed topic, not woman's football or Qatar and FIFA). Or IAG, who are in competition with the ME3 at the same time as all other airlines?

GUWonder

Unlike some here, I don't profess to be an EK expert, an expert on "backpackers", an expert on "poor guys", an expert on American soccer and such mentioned in this thread. All of that posturing about expertise is your corner; it is not mine.

Look forward to reading your stories of how to make or lose money with the fares "those poor guys" pay. Armchair CEOs have a place in the world of aviation too.

"Grandpa, can you tell me that story one more time?"

irishguy28

It's an attempt to imply guilt by association. Something bad happens in one sector of one country - and the whole Arab-speaking world can't be trusted.

Or possibly some people really do consider all Middle Eastern/Gulf countries as a single, homogenous "Arab" grouping and are oblivious to any further refinements.

eternaltransit

Unskilled migrant workers in DXB are quite irrelevant to the subject about fares paid and is a red herring if the point is to try and make it seem that DXB-India flights are all full of el-cheapo pax.

The truly poor migrant workers don't get to go back home and stay for many years (willingly or unwillingly is a matter for a different forum). They send money back to family, but don't see them. Thus they do not form the customer base.

Low paid migrant workers who go do go back to visit friends and relatives do not fly EK - they fly on cheaper carriers such as flydubai, or Air Arabia from Sharjah.

EK is the high cost option for O&D to DXB and there are plenty of cheaper alternatives: especially if you look at the airlines serving DXB. Anyone who has been to T2 or indeed T1 can attest to this.

So really we're talking about pax who earn enough money to have an okay standard of living - especially considering most migrant workers at this level (buying Y tickets for once a year tickets) have living expenses paid for and keep all their money/send it back, they are quite frugal. So really, EK doesn't have to adjust its fares to support these pax - they have no mandate from the government to offer low cost migrant workers journeys home: that is either not part of the package or employers will pay for it.

Then you have the wealthier professional expats who all have annual leave allowances from their employers in various cabins. They will be paying good fares.

Thus EK continues to rely on its 90% transit traffic for volume, and charges extra high margins for DXB O&D pax.

I don't think EK really attracts that many GCC migrant workers transiting through DXB who are paying low fares - migrant workers who do that are likely to be earnings $$$/airfare paid by employer in J/F, and so the low yield insinuation fails.

eternaltransit

Given safety is a truly existential issue for every airline that tries to present itself as being a decent regional competitor or global competitor, I would say that safety and maintenance is the one thing they wouldn't cut corners on.

Take Ryanair with its extremely low fares (indeed, only through ancillary revenue from things like bag charges and boarding pass printing is it profitable) - Michael O'Leary knows that safety is the only thing between profits and bankruptcy: Given ICAO's recent audit of the UAE aviation regulator and the fact that Qantas, which prides itself on having an excellent safety record uses DXB as a base for its A380s (http://www.icao.int/safety/Pages/USOAP-Results.aspx) and the past history of incidents (or lack thereof), http://www.jacdec.de/airline-safety-ranking-2015/, http://www.thenational.ae/business/i...afest-airlines I would say that the odds of being involved in a safety incident on an EK plane are comparable or safer than being on any other major network carrier competitor with historically high standards.

FD1971

You guessed right, a certain percentage of the trips is paid by their employers, companies owned by, you guessed right again, the owner of more or less everything in Dubai...

FD1971

Emirates is indeed known for attracting high yield pax, especially between Dubai and India. And the part of revenue on those 300-400 Euro (net) tickets from Europe to India allocated to the second segment make them look even better... ^