http://www.ameinfo.com/152882.html

 

EK is being rather aggressive with USA routes...why not no one else if lying those route

 

I will only fly this route if I get the suite!

 

24 hour Layover?

 

Sorry but I'm going to have to call this one. Is EK using the dart board approach to route expansion? Is there any real market between Dubai and SFO? Or, are they just looking for places to put all those planes they ordered. . .

Perhaps some EK insight?

 

Koru, I know its been planned for some time now.
The planes are to make the plans come to reality. I feel like at times its a "If you build it, they will come" attitude, but they spend alot of energy figuring this stuff out.

Remember, most of Ek traffic is not staying at Dubai, but just passing thru enroute elsewhere.Now if we can only get them to see the light of sending an Airbus instead of a Boeing to some of these places

 

Koru:

EK pay a lot of money for a proprietary system that tracks all passenger movements for almost all airlines worldwide. They find the city pairs that need service and will be profitable for them. Los Angeles and Southern California have a very large Iranian population. San Francisco and the Bay area have a very large Indian population. These flights will have very high load factors right from the start, just like Houston and Sao Paulo do.


TP

 

Well, that's good to hear. I didn't realize that the Bay had a large Indian community. I fly there all the time, as well as Vancouver, and I get Vancouver, but not the Bay; very rarely do I run in to people from the Sub Continent, but they must be in the burbs

The only way we do well out of SFO is to have feed. If it was not for the Star Alliance there would be no feed. If we did not have that then the one timers would dry up in short order. But flying through Auckland to get to Delhi is out, so it wouldn't work for us anyway.

My other question is fuel. Am I right to assume that EK pays very little for their fuel out of Dubai, hence the hubing through there? The problem comes once you've breached the 14 hour mark in that you are now burning 3/4 of a ton to take a ton. SQ apparently makes no money on the A345 run to JFK because of this, even with an all high yield flight.

Interesting stuff none the less. I don't profess to be any genius, and this is a very different way of looking at thing's for an airline, the EK way, but it seams to be making money and working, so perhaps the big US carriers could take note. . . or perhaps they won't. The great thing about EK is that it is doing so well, and with it and other similar carriers requiring pilots it means that the nightmare in the States is not going to affect the pilot group as badly as it could. Wages and benefits, in areas of the world other than the US, are going up.

 

EK pay the going rate for gas out of DXB, SFO was planned 3 years ago and delayed. You would be shocked to know how many Indians(india) there is in the bay area.

 

OK, but what is the going rate out of Dubai?

When I lived in the Gulf I paid .35 for a litre of petrol, and it never changed. I understand that it is the same rate that everybody else pay's out of DXB, but everybody else doesn't hub out of there. That would be quite the differential in fuel costs compared to Auckland where we hub out of.