Chief Operating Officer, Emirates
John Benny | Staff Reporter
Emirates airline is back on track less than a year after the pandemic erased travel demand overnight and dealt a crippling blow to the aviation industry.
Since Dubai re-opened to international visitors, Emirates has gradually restored its network and flight schedules from just a handful of cities in July 2020 to over 120 destinations today. The airline has plans to add more flights to its existing routes as restrictions ease around the world and travel demand returns to normal.
As the attention turns to Expo 2020 Dubai and the peak winter months, it is worth remembering that just last year, Emirates was facing its biggest challenge ever. The airline, one of the world’s largest in terms of traffic and connectivity, had to suddenly park its massive fleet.
If that wasn’t enough, thousands of passengers were left stranded in Dubai. They needed to be immediately flown back to their home countries. UAE nationals, who had gone abroad for business or vacation, had to be brought back as countries closed their borders in response to the outbreak. “Emirates was forced to ground all our aircraft as well as shut down destinations because of border closures,” said Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Chief Operating Officer.
However, "we continued to operate certain flights for transporting people and cargo to some destinations - we've done a lot of repatriation flights,” said Al Redha. “None of us had envisaged the closure of airports to this level.”
As directed by the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA), Emirates worked closely with governments and embassies to operate repatriation services until Dubai International airport (DXB) re-opened for transit passengers and later for scheduled passenger flights. The airline also partnered with the health authorities to implement comprehensive pandemic health and safety measures on board and on the ground, to safeguard its customers, employees and the communities it serves.
Gradual restart of passenger and cargo flights
Emirates gradually restarted scheduled passenger operations on May 21. By September 30, the airline was operating passenger and cargo services to 104 cities. Emirates played a key role in India’s Vande Bharat Mission (VBM). Dubbed as the largest repatriation drive, VBM saw millions of stranded Indians across the world flying home due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As countries around the world closed their borders … travellers faced an unprecedented challenge to get home,” said an Emirates spokesperson.
"Recognising its important role in keeping people connected, and helping support those stranded safely reunite with their loved ones, Emirates quickly rose to the challenge, opening up vital air links to stranded travellers abroad through actively engaging with embassies, consulates and governments around the world to support repatriation flights, " said the airline's spokesperson.
Joint effort
Emirates said the repatriation efforts involved planning and execution across several of the airline’s departments.
"Commercial operations, network planning, international affairs and numerous other departments across the airline worked together to swiftly respond to challenges posed by travel restrictions and sudden border closures, and helped secure government approvals to fly, so people could get home safely," said the spokesperson.
"As the airline gradually and safely began to restore its network, it began putting flights back into its regular schedule to support customers and businesses, demonstrating its commitment to assisting communities and economies around the world rebuild and rebound through facilitating and growing air transport links," the spokesperson said.
Early response
Emirates introduced a string of initiatives after the initial COVID-19 outbreak, all aimed at enhancing travel safety.
Emirates, which was the first airline to offer free COVID-19 medical cover, expanded its multi-risk travel insurance coverage late last year. The carrier said over 7.2 million customers were protected under the insurance, which covers COVID-related medical expenses, among other things.
“We were one of the first airlines to introduce measures onboard aircraft in terms of hygiene, and providing protective breathing equipment for our cabin crew, masks and sanitisation kits to our passengers,” said Adel Al Redha, Emirates’ Chief Operating Officer.
The initiative “gave our travellers an extra level of peace of mind during travel – they didn’t have to worry about what kind of insurance they needed to take or what kind of accommodation they needed to plan for that travel insurance,” said Al Redha.
The airline also introduced self-check-in and bag-drop kiosks at Dubai International (DXB), allowing customers receive their boarding pass, choose seats on board and drop off their bags. In the last two months, over 568,000 customers used this service, which enabled them to skip queues at the counter, breeze through the airport and proceed directly to immigration.
New services have also been added to allow passengers to make payments for ancillary purchases, such as additional baggage allowance, directly at the kiosks.
“All these steps did encourage people to travel - it did help more passengers to come to Dubai,” said the airline executive.
COVID-19 info hub
Emirates’ COVID-19 information hub has become one of the top authoritative sources of information for travellers. The airline has also been a forerunner in adopting digital verification solutions for travel, from adopting the IATA Travel Pass to partnering with the UAE health authorities to enable seamless digital checks for COVID-19 travel documentation.
"These projects deliver multiple benefits from better customer experience to reduced use of paper, and improved efficiency and reliability of travel document checks," said Emirates in a statement.
By October, the airline plans to extend the implementation of the IATA Travel Pass for customers at all its destinations.
Leading the way
As airlines last year scrambled to come up with a COVID-19 response, Dubai’s Emirates airline stayed way ahead of the curve.
“Emirates from the beginning was a pioneer in trying to introduce changes and discuss with the relevant authority protocols to stimulate business and assure our passengers,” said Al Redha.
Earlier in April, Emirates launched a ‘flight to nowhere - a special flight carrying only fully vaccinated crew and passengers onboard.
EK2021 – as the flight was called – not only celebrated the success of UAE's vaccination programme but also highlighted Emirates' progress in vaccinating its staff, pilots and cabin crew. It was also a celebration for the passengers who took the flight as a sign of the return to normality as most of them had not been inside a plane since the onset of the pandemic.
“This flight in specific was a means to recognise the great work that has been done in providing vaccination to everybody living in the UAE - and as a means to demonstrate that travelling is safe and that we can do it together,” said Al Redha.
Adel Al Redha, Emirates Chief Operating Officer.
