Watch: Dubai’s Emirates airline dons many hats: Flagship airline, global brand, pandemic champion

  • Date: 25-Apr-2021
  • Source: Gulf News
  • Sector:Transport
  • Country:UAE
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Watch: Dubai’s Emirates airline dons many hats: Flagship airline, global brand, pandemic champion

Emirates, one of the world's largest carriers, served more than 150 destinations worldwide before the beginning of the pandemic. Even during the current crisis, the carrier is playing a central role in transporting vaccines, repatriating stranded passengers, and supporting Dubai's hard-hit tourism sector. But this wasn't always the case. Emirates traversed a long and hard path before becoming the aviation behemoth that it is today. In 1984, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al Maktoum, then UAE Minister of Defence asked Sir Maurice Flanagan, then managing director of dnata, to look into starting an airline. By December that year, a comprehensive business plan was ready, and the name "Emirates" was chosen for the new airline. A year later, Flanagan was tasked with the ambitious mission to launch an airline in 5 months with $10 million seed funding. There would be no subsidies or aero political protection under Dubai's open skies policy. On October 25, 1985, Emirates operated its first flights from Dubai to Karachi and Mumbai, using a Boeing 737 and an Airbus 300 B4 wet-leased from Pakistan International Airlines. In its first 5 years of operations, Emirates grew its network to 14 destinations - these included Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi, Amman, Colombo,