The decision was taken at the end of last week. Emiratesthe Gulf's largest carrier, is to cut capacity to the United States. Five lines will be allocated by reducing capacity. In an announcement published last Wednesday, the company announced that it was reducing the number of its flights from Mayfrom a daily frequency to five flights a week to Fort Lauderdale and Orlando - mainly leisure destinations. Emirates routes on Boston, Los Angeles and Seattleflights will be reduced from twice-daily to daily. The reduced flight schedule will come into effect in June for Boston and Seattle and in July for Los Angeles. This represents a 20% capacity reduction.
An Emirates spokesman said that traffic volume had slowed significantly since the arrival of Donald Trump at the head of the United States in mid-January. Restrictions on visasthe strengthening of safety measures security then the ban on taking electronic devices (computers, tablets and cameras) in the cabin - the so-called " electronics ban" - have clearly destabilised the market.
" Over the last three months, we have seen a significant deterioration our booking profiles on all our US routes, in all passenger segments" an Emirates spokeswoman told Reuters.
The American airlines are not hiding their satisfaction. They should be able to recover some of the passengers from cancelled flights - American in Boston and Delta in Seattle in particular. However, some American airline executives maintain that Emirates took this decision. for lack of profitability of the routes concerned. For several years now, carriers have been complaining about the subsidies offered by the Gulf States to their national airlines, which would have enabled them to launch routes across the board, with no real economic basis.
The American airlines' theory about Emirates' losses justifying its decision seems to be corroborated by the two other Gulf carriers, Etihad and Emirates. Qatar Airways. The latter two have not announced any reduction in their flights to the United States. However, Etihad only serves six US airports, while Qatar Airways lands in ten US cities.
We have seen no decline in passenger numbers on our routes between Doha and the United States.
In Dubai during theArabian Travel MarketAkbar Al Baker, the company's CEO, has even confirmed that the company will start its service on Las Vegas before the end of the year and the San Francisco site in early 2018. " We are not no decrease passenger numbers on our routes between Doha and the United States, and we are still planning to continue our expansion "said Akbar Al Baker.
Emirates is the largest carrier on the Gulf/USA route with 3.01 million passengers from the United States in 2015, followed by Qatar Airways with 1.27 million departing passengers, Etihad with 1.14 million and Saudia with 338,000 passengers.
*2016= statistics over 10 months
