DUBAI: The Dubai-based carrier announced that it will reduce 25 per cent of its flights and not utilise 45 aircraft during the runway closure from April 16 to May 30, 2019.
Due to reduced capacity at Dubai International, Emirates will cancel and re-time flights as well as change operating aircraft.
Dubai airport, on an average, handles 1,100 aircraft movements per day, with Emirates and flydubai taking the lion’s share of the flight movements. The reduction in capacity was earlier estimated at approximately 43 per cent – or 473 flights – during the 45-day period.
The airport has already said that airlines will have to reduce their operations during the 45-day period due to significant capacity reduction resulting from single runway operations.
During the 2014 upgrade of the northern runway, Dubai International operated with one runway for 80 days. That closure had cost the Emirates Group an estimated $467 million (Dh1.71 billion) in lost revenue.
Saj Ahmad, Chief Analyst at StrategicAero Research, said Emirates maximises the utility of its Airbus A380 fleet while being able to more flexibly rotate its 777-300ER jets to markets across Africa where demand is coming back strong.
“This will be a challenging year for Emirates and it’s likely there will be a financial impact for its full-year earnings ending 2019. However, Emirates’ traditional financial boost in the latter half of the year alongside the planned 2019 edition of the Dubai Air Show will help drive revenue forward in a big way,” Ahmad said.
Budget carrier flydubai has already announced that it will operate 39 routes from Al Maktoum International airport at Dubai World Central. Flydubai will operate the following flights from Al Maktoum airport during the 45-day period: Addis Ababa, Abha, Ahmedabad, Mumbai, Colombo, Cochin, Delhi, Gassim, Jizan, Ha’il, Hyderabad, Faisalabad, Chennai, Madina, Mashad, Multan, Najaf, Riyadh, Istanbul, Sialkot, Shiraz, Ta’if, Thiruvananthapuram and Tabuk.
