Sir Tim Clark, president and ceo of Emirates, has shared his thoughts on the Middle East crises for the first time—saying that once this is over, it won’t take much for the carrier ‘to get back into the saddle’.
The Dubai-based airline is currently operating 65% of its flights, and this looks to continue to increase as Sir Tim highlights that the carrier is already flying to 87% of the countries it served originally.
The 13% EK destinations that are not in the flying program at the moment will probably be there within the next two to three weeks, he adds.
. . . ‘Great Belief’
Talking at a CAPA summit in Berlin last week, Sir Tim did not appear concerned that recent events will dampen the appeal of the UAE and EK, saying he has a great belief that Dubai will continue to excel.
“I do not believe that people are going to say I’m never going to go back to this place again,” he told the CAPA event. “People have short memories.”
. . . Recovery?
Once [we] get a resolution to the crisis, and there is a degree of stability, Sir Tim says things will be back to normal.
“And I can assure you that if this goes away in the next two weeks, three or four weeks, then by the end of the summer we won’t have even remembered what had happened and we will continue to move at pace according to our plans.”
The airline boss adds that he is ‘determined’ EK will not only get through this but continue building.
“We’ll still be the most profitable airline in the world, as you will soon hear,” he says. “We are not going backwards, we’re not taking a breath…We’re just getting on with the job and we’ll get that job done.”
