Originally Posted by
kuroko
In my opinion an (new) EU route would only make sense if there would be an agreement for feeder flights from Europe to [new departure airport EU-US].
That is not really the Emirates way.
They have said multiple times that there are cities that are underserved (as regards direct transatlantic flights), and it would almost certainly be on that basis the EK would commence flights.
This was (at least partly) the reason for MXP-JFK and, presumably, was for the old HAM-JFK service, too.
Originally Posted by
kuroko
Any ideas for a possible upcoming feeder agreement within Europe?
Again, I don't see Emirates wanting to/needing to work with any partners in Europe.
None of the aligned carriers would probably want to/be allowed to partner with Emirates. That just leaves the unaligned/small/LCC carriers - which would not be particularly useful for consolidating transfer pax at whichever "hub" (or hubs) EK would use. (Whichever "hub" is in question would most likely already be a hub of an existing aligned European carrier - who would be unlikely to want to assist Emirates encroaching into "their" market). The most likely candidate would be Easyjet - EK has at least some form of partnership with them. But this would be an awkward solution, particularly for J/F customers.
EK would, if they pursue further fifth freedom flights, likely only consider cities where they have a reasonable expectation of pairing the DXB-XXX demand with the XXX-JFK [or wherever, in the US] demand, and be able to operate without the need for arranging transfers at the XXX "hub".