Originally Posted by
iahphx
Honestly, I think that 5th freedom route would be WAY more successful than their Dubai flights. Many, many Americans travel to Europe, and vice-versa. Few Americans travel to the Middle East. Anyone have the numbers? Wild guess: I would think O/D USA-Europe is 25x O/D USA-Middle East -- and much greater if you exclude TLV.
But JFK to MXP is just one
tiny part of the America to Europe market. (Granted, it appears to be an underserved route, which is why Emirates selected it). For those Americans wanting to travel to places in Europe other than Milan/Italy, why would you fly to Milan on a carrier with no other onward flights (other than to Dubai)?
(Milan was not even in the Top 15 list of European airports having transatlantic flights in summer 2014. Heathrow topped the list with 816 weekly flights, Rome was in 6th place with 143 flights, while Copenhagen came in 15th place with 65 weekly flights).
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