Emirates has announced it plans to serve Dallas with its flagship A380 on October 1st of this year.  The aircraft will replace a Boeing 777-200LR and will offer 223 more seats than the current 777.

Why?  Houston has service to the Middle East because of the oil business.  Dallas has it because of the IT business.

The Middle Eastern carriers are the airlines of choice for entire families from India and Pakistan when traveling between the United States and the Indian sub-continent.  Currently, many going to India actually travel down to Houston to fly home because the seat availability is better and the prices are cheaper.

Emirates knows it can reliably fill the A380 by lowering prices.

Quite frankly, I think this is being put into place today rather than next year or the following to ensure that a base of travelers is built up before American Airlines can deploy its 787 aircraft on a direct route to India.  (American’s 777 aircraft don’t quite have the range for the trip but the 787 will).

I think this is a powerful pre-emptive action on Emirates part to subdue QATAR, Etihad and American Airlines and it will likely work very well for them.

Filed under: Airline News by ajax