Emirates President Won’t Rule Out More U.S.-Europe Nonstop Flights
Skift Take
It's funny. Fifth Freedom flights — those are routes where an airline flies from a place other than its home country — account for roughly 1 percent of Emirates' capacity, according to the airline's president. And Emirates has only two such routes to the United States. But it's a hot topic among airline insiders, and it doesn't sound like that will change.
Emirates President Tim Clark on Tuesday would not rule out his airline adding more nonstop routes between Europe and the United States, despite recent assurances from U.S. airlines and American diplomats that the three biggest Gulf carriers would not launch new transatlantic routes for the foreseeable future.
"If we wish to do more points in the U.S. or more intermediate points at some point, there is nothing that stops us doing it, contrary to what others seem to be saying to the media or believing," an adamant Clark said during a group interview at the IATA Annual General Meeting in Sydney, a conference of airline executives. "Maybe they're reading a different document. I don't get it, frankly, when people say they can't, they won't. This is all stuff in nonsense."
The ongoing saga receives a surprising amount of attention considering Emirates only operates two nonstop routes between Europe and the United States — from Milan to New York and from Athens to Newark. Technical
