The USA Today aviation blog, Today in the Sky, mentioned THIS story on ATW today.  Tim Clark of Emirates says they won’t be joining alliances and he feels that if you need an alliance, your business model is flawed.   Just a few days ago, I wrote this.

Just a couple of days ago, I was questioning what happens to airlines like Emirates who eschew alliances?  I’m not sure this is credible criticism from someone who has commited his airline to ordering 58 Airbus A380 aircraft either.   I still can’t identify why connecting via Dubai (or anywhere else in the UAE) is more attractive and I don’t know why we would consider them an attractive cargo stop either (other than for cargo directly on a path intersecting with Dubai.)

This is Dubai’s new airport, Al-Maktoum International Airport.  While it will be an impressive facility by anyone’s definition, it was built on the premise that it is perfectly situated to be a global hub.

No, really.  Yeah, the problem with this world is that no matter how “ideal” you believe yourself to be, circumstances have a way of teaching you a lesson.  Look up Montreal-Mirabel airport for an example.  Better yet, here it is.

If you plan to use even 50% of the planned capacity of that airport in one year, you would need more than just one or 3 airlines operating from it.  You would need a large group of international airlines operating to and from that hub and probably it would need to be a large alliance network airport at that.

The planned capacity at that airport is about twice that of London Heathrow.  London Heathrow gets its traffic from a vast array of airlines and has had to organize itself around alliance needs lately.   At that, it has the traffic it has because not only does it offer good hub connections, it’s a major world city connected to other major world cities. 

Dubai isn’t a major world city.

Filed under: Airline Service by ajax