Originally Posted by
DYKWIA
The majority of people I speak to in the US are well aware of Emirates. EK seem to have a great reputation - it's just that most Americans don't really consider Dubai or the Middle East as a tourist destination.
Routes to the far east are hard to justify as it's a heck of a long way round.
So, people would like to fly EK, but there is nowhere they'd like to go
The Indian people I've worked with over there all try and use EK where possible when travelling home.
The other issue is earning miles. I fly often to South Africa from the East Coast of the US and Emirates is a good option except I can't earn EQM's on US carriers. Due to cost factors I have done this 3 or 4 times.
I am based in PHL so to drag myself to JFK to not earn EQMs in the 19,000 mile range seems counter productive. Now if Emirates flew out of PHL maybe I would look more into Skywards.