Emirates aims 85 mn passenger traffic from India by 2020

With India set to grow in the aviation market, Gulf carrier Emirates is eyeing a greater pie in the international passenger traffic from here by flying 85 million travellers in and out of the country by 2020. According to a report released by the India Brand Equity Foundation earlier this year, India is expected to become the third-largest aviation market in the world by 2020 from the ninth-largest currently. "In the next five years, we are looking for 67 percent growth in the number of passengers flying to and from India. We are looking for a greater chunk in the segment we operate in," Emirates Airline vice president (India and Nepal), Essa Sulaiman Ahmad said. "We are looking for more investments in building our products to achieve the goal (of ferrying 85 million passengers)," he added. Ahmad was speaking on the sidelines of a report launch on Emirates' contribution to the Indian economy. In the previous fiscal, the airline had flown a total of 5.3 million passengers on its India network. Currently, Emirates Airline operates 183 weekly flights to nine Indian cities with its hubs at Mumbai and Delhi. Besides, Emirates also provides connections to 140 destinations across the globe though its Dubai gateway.

According to the report compiled by economic think-tank National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Emirates' operations in India has an impact of USD 848 million on the country's GDP besides supporting over 86,000 Indian jobs and generating almost USD 1.7 billion in foreign exchange earnings. "Since the start of our operations in 1985, we have grown steadily and kept the momentum. For the next phase of growth we have kept similar plans to reach more and more people," Ahmad said.

When asked about the recently released draft civil aviation policy, he said, "We are happy that the government called us for participation. We have assigned specific teams for that and they will give necessary comments to the government in due time."