Dubai-based airline Emirates sees exponential growth potential in the Indian market in the next financial year, a senior airline executive said. A key hurdle to tapping the potential is a weekly cap imposed on the number of seats it can offer passengers on routes to and from India.
Notably, India features amongst the top five markets for the airline in terms of volume and value.
Mohammad Sarhan, the company’s Vice President for India and Nepal, told Moneycontrol that Emirates was on track to achieving its passenger and revenue targets for India in the current financial year.
“The growth here is massive, with demand outstripping supply,” Sarhan said.
“As the Covid-related flight restrictions were lifted in April last year, the demand recovered virtually immediately, demonstrating the enormous size of the India-Dubai air services market.”
Healthy growth
According to Sarhan, the airline carried over 4.4 million passengers between Dubai and India in 2022, up from over 1.3 million the previous year.
“Even in the lean period, we have seen a healthy response from the market. There were record sales last quarter,” he said.
The airline expects healthy growth in its Indian operations because the demand momentum has been consistent. The current passenger seat occupancy, also referred to as seat factor, from and to India is very strong.
Sarhan said the traffic resurgence has been led by the leisure segment, followed by a revival in business and corporate travel.
“We have seen a rise in business travel to and from India. The market here seems to be resistant to any slowdown. Even the weddings segment has seen growth.”
“We feel that the recent Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between India and the UAE can only be fully utilised if more travel is allowed between the two countries,” the executive said.
India and the UAE signed the CEPA last year. This strategic agreement, among other things, allows for enhanced market access to both countries’ service providers.
Emirates connects nine points in India to Dubai. In addition to linking India with Dubai, Emirates facilitates connectivity for Indian transfer passengers via Dubai to numerous markets on its network in the Middle East, Europe, Africa and the Americas.
Weekly seat cap
Sarhan pointed out that some airlines have still not deployed their full capacity on the route yet.
“We are committed to the market here and have already deployed the full permitted capacity from 1st of April 2022 onwards,” Sarhan said.
He said the cap on the number of weekly seats which the airline is permitted to operate between India and Dubai is a hurdle to its ability to meet the enormous demand. Emirates and its affiliate FlyDubai have a weekly quota of 66,000 seats to and from India per week.
Presently, Emirates is fully utilising its current entitlement, but is unable to expand operations to India, despite the demand and the exponential growth it sees in the Indian air travel market and tourism.
“We are seeking to increase the bilateral seat entitlements for the Dubai-India routes under the air services agreement between India and the UAE,” Sarhan said.
“Since both countries want to expand business ties further after the signing of CEPA, more seats are acutely required,” he said.
He pointed out that the weekly seat entitlements on the India-Dubai routes had been exhausted by Indian airlines as well.
Single largest overseas market
In fact, Dubai has been consistently the single largest international market for Indian carriers, attesting to the critical importance of the India-Dubai route.
“With new airlines and airports coming up in India, we would welcome both the incumbent and new players to also get the right to increase operations or launch new flights between India and Dubai,” Sarhan said.
Apart from bilateral air services rights, Sarhan said the India market was large enough to accommodate all airlines and help them stay profitable.
“Competition is a good thing and India deserves to have strong airline brands.”
Emirates began operations to India in 1985 with scheduled services to Mumbai and Delhi. The airline operates flights to over 140 destinations globally from its hub in Dubai.
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