I agree with the first and last point.

Some of the remarks made by the OP are factually incorrect and carry racist connotations. It is important that the OP gets accurate and honest responses instead of babbling about with unfounded theories and false assumptions.

Really?

* checks the flogged horse for a pulse *

As the money moves. But, of course, we all know that Emirates (the airline) couldn't possibly have gotten any sweetheart deals (like a $2 billion write off)from their gov't. :)

Interestingly, the Fair Skies coalition is mostly going after Emirates today. Their tweets say that the load factor on their new Dallas-Dubai flight is 38%, and that, last year alone, Emirates got $6.9 billion in subsidies.

The "he said, she said" approach was getting old even before you started pointing us to blogs and tweets. As a professional airline analyst, surely you can cite primary sources?

It's actually a little embarrassing that they'd post a statistic like that. It demonstrates how bias, and overall, the lack of credibility that the campaign employs.

Firstly, the statistic was found on a public forum: http://www.dfwtower.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=6833 and is calculated assuming a 516 capacity. Evidently this is incorrect, as Emirates uses a 489 seat A380, and would actually place the load factor around 40%.

Secondly, assuming that the campaign actually meant 'since introducing their A380', instead of 'new flight', the flight has recorded a 47% load factor in October and November. December/January/February's statistics haven't been released yet.

Both minor points, but if the campaign is going to throw around 'facts' about Emirates, they should at least do the research, and make sure that the average human being with a computer can't disprove their 'facts', with publicly sourced (reliable) data. When a campaign starts using internet forums as their primary source, one has to wonder whether the campaign deserves any respect.

(Load factor calculated from: https://www.dfwairport.com/stats/ )

It's us that do all the number crunching on this thread. It's fun though.

The 38% seems to be from here:
http://www.airliners.net/aviation-fo....main/6247492/

This was presumably calculated based on Oct 2014 data released by DFW airport - see https://www.dfwairport.com/stats/

There are two reasons why this is skewed:
1. The A380 service only began on Oct 1, 2014. Demand will probably take some more time to catch up.
2. The calculations are in fact wrong, because it assumes 516 seats while it's actually 489.

The total availability was actually 30,318, giving a load factor of 40.36% for October (Still ignoring NRSA - non revenue, space available pax). The "fact" of 38% is, in fact, not a fact. :D

This is still really low, however if you look at November:
Total 15,872 pax (ignoring NRSA)
Total availability 29,340 (lower because November has 30 days, October had 31)
Load factor 54.1%

Unfortunately for us, November 2014 is where the statistics end. However, winter is typically higher for EK, as can be seen in January 14 statistics from DFW.

So, the screams of 38% are really based on one skewed data point. However, they can't even seem to get their numbers right.

Unfortunately, way too many people will simply hit the retweet button - but that's life.

Edit: On the plus side for EK, this is yet another low-hanging fruit. Their written response to all of this should be an interesting read.

As his latest post proves.

Maybe the feather duster should be applied to posts that have no credible source cited*?

*Twitter is not a credible source...

This is a major point. We do not have too many people working in the industry and posting on FT. To give you an example, there are dozens of people working for LH or major airports checking certain forums on FT, i.e. the LH forum, during their lunch break for entertainment and some folks over there have become legendary for their contributions. :D

Some weeks ago, I applauded the efforts of the EK supporters on this thread. You know that you are fighting without any chance to win, but nevertheless you continue to do so. That deserves a lot of respect. ^

As stated numerous times before, it is pretty much in line with EK ops. from other stations in the same hemisphere that seasonal shifts are driving demand, so loads in the 30's and 40's were common from Europe as well.

I also pointed out that the losses from those months alone would mean break even load factors of 140, 150, 160% in high season to make up for the losses in low season.

Therefore, it is not really important whether EK managed 37, 42 or 47% (remember the vast vast majority is super low yield traffic) ex DFW.

Each single flight losses insane amounts of money and pretty much supports earlier theories about some US markets barely able to support a 4000-5000 mile flight on a 200+ seater.

And let me discuss your next argument already. ;)

It does not really make a difference if they are able to sell twenty more seats per flight now with their 2 for 1 fare, the extra revenue is barely enough for an hour of fuel on the big bird.

As stated so often before, Europe might get close to a black zero, if those guys stop over in Dubai and pay taxes, I see black numbers of the Sheikdom somehow, but the big bird on ultra long-haul is loco.

I'm quite sure the original horse has been taken out back and shot in the head, repeatedly!

It's just that every so often zombie horses keep propping up :D

Didn't Clark mention in the webcast that A380's flying to the US have an average 84-86 percent load factor?

This is exactly the point I mentioned earlier.

The Dubai business plan did not work out. It is a philosophical discussion whether the tall tower, the metro, the airport or too many big birds caused the shortage of cash, but it became obvious that during a certain point the business plan did not generate enough cash to sustain operations.

As stated so often before; EK might be able to operate a black zero if you exclude certain factors like serving all the debt, infrastructure etc.

But EK is a completely different case if you compare it to Etihad or Qatar.

Those guys might need less tourists to sustain their local tourism infrastructure, but certainly do not have the network economies and crucial fleet size to drive down CASM as much as EK.

So at this point, the conclusion is rather easy.

EK is a bucket case financially, it might generate positive financial results for the whole sheikdom though.

Qatar and Etihad are toys and are part of major plans to get their sheikdoms on the map. Considering the deeper pockets and ambition of local rulers, the billions they burn from running ops. are not really a factor.

Judging from some estimates; one year of losses at Qatar should pay for one soccer World Cup stadium.

But again, if you have a 300 billion master plan for the development of your country, do you really care whether your most important vehicle getting you to that point burns some billions from ops.

That would be like not willing to invest the gas money to drive your kid to the pitch every day on the way to a $250 million major league contract...

I can only guess he has some problems with the number two.

The A380 has two passenger decks, so twice the amount of a 77W.

And the loads he stated are twice as high as in reality, so 84-86% is actually closer to 42-43%. ;)

And I am not making fun here, but judging from the performance of the leading airlines on this planet, like LH or AF/KL, selling 200 tix a day is not a bad performance at all, i.e. from DFW.

With regards to EY and QR and the issue of cash injections - EY especially: I mean, it is impossible for that airline to be building equity stakes in other airlines without basically being an investment fund vehicle for its owner that happens to fly airplanes around on the side, I think!

Regarding the US flights - I think at 40% load factors they are pretty much losing about 300k USD a sector, so about 350-400k USD a day per A380 that flies to the US (based on previous analyses of costs and potential revenue/utilisation), so with 10 a day, 4 million a day. If those load factors are constant throughout the year (implausible - some of those flights go out 90%+, and we shall see soon with DoT T-100 figures for the new upgauge to A380), that's only a loss of 1.465 billion USD. Given EKs revenue of 21 billion USD last financial year, there might be a case for global breakeven from ops.

It doesn't also immediately follow you then need 140-160% LF in high season are fares are not normally distributed in sync with capacity/load factors (that is, fares tend to increase more rapidly as capacity approaches full). We don't know the fare distribution curve for these US flights so there may indeed actually be profitable scenarios.

However I certainly take your point that it seems difficult to make up these losses in high season given the passenger revenue profile for EK. It remains to be seen whether this is supported by the rest of the network operation financially - after all these A380 up gauges were only really deployed this last year and EK seems to be quite ruthless in down-gauging or cutting routes that don't perform. If the year on year growth their model is predicated on doesn't materialise, then we shall see if EK want to eat losses or rationally go back to something like a 777-300ER. Are you basing your knowledge of EK EU load factors on recent German information or from a couple of years ago? You have some very good points, but I don't know if the German data is replicable across all of EKs source markets, even in the EU, especially considering the service restrictions that EK has in the German market.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articl...outside-region

There we have it - the "reasonable" end-game that DL wants :D

Like all lobbying efforts, sounds innocent enough, before you realise that O&D traffic isn't the business model! :D And if it's construed narrowly as "no more MXP-JFK flights", then it's difficult to be any clearer that this all about protecting JV revenue :D

So DAL wants to boost the UAE tourism sector further, by requiring that all passengers to/from the USA travelling on EK have a stopover vacation en-route.

How nice of them!!!! :D:D:D:D

Of course, EK could allow passengers to change their ticket on arrival at DXB so that they can exchange their stopover vacation and old ticket in full payment for a brand new ticket to get to their ultimate destination more promptly.