Emirates Chief Commercial Officer Adnan Kazim said international air travel is expected to return to pre-COVID levels by mid-2023.
“I would say it is currently up to 85% with the improvement in the domestic markets,” said Mr. Kazim. “By next year, with more countries expected to open up, including China, Far Eastern countries, Hong Kong and Japan, the international air travel sector will fully recover,” he said.
According to him, there has been an increase in demand for destinations in the US, Europe, the Far East and even the sub-continent, especially for the premium category.
He added that given the rise in travel bookings and rising demand for premium flight, several airlines including Emirates are in the process of restarting large wide-body aircraft such as the Airbus A380 and Boeing 747-8.
“Bengaluru is a classic example, so we are going to fly A380 to Dubai from here from 30th October,” the CCO said. “We now fly 80 of our total fleet of 118 A380s and are in the process of deploying more A380s on other busy routes globally,” he said.
In addition, several airports including London (Heathrow), Paris, Frankfurt and Dubai are encouraging wide-body aircraft to reduce the frequency of smaller aircraft and reduce airport congestion.
“Many airports are getting ready for wide-body aircraft. They cannot handle higher number of aircraft and higher frequency. The A380 can mobilize a lot of people at a time and gives flexibility and independence to the airport infrastructure,” Mr Kazim said.
Emirates’ CCO further said that India was one of the key markets for the airline. “All our existing flights are operating at full capacity and we will further expand connectivity between India and Dubai by launching more flights.”
He added that Emirates is excited to drive its business and continue to embrace digital technologies to continuously improve the safety and flying experience of passengers. “We are also exploring the metaverse in various HR methods and cabin crew training. One day we will even find it for commercial use, maybe being sold through the Metaverse,” he said.