Emirates’ president Sir Tim Clark has said that the airline industry needs to get flying again or else the crisis will get much worse.
Speaking at the World Aviation Festival Virtual, he said Emirates was good for another six, seven, eight months in terms of cash, but if in six months global demand is where it is today, we are all going to face difficulties, not just Emirates.”
He said that though the airline’s entire fleet of Beoing 777’s – a total of 151 planes – was flying, they are mostly carrying cargo.
“We believed quite firmly late last year that by April/May we would start seeing an uptick in demand,” he said. “Clearly that has not happened to the extent we would have wanted.”
He was meant to retire in 2020 after 35 years with the company he helped found and has run since 2003, but delayed his departure due to the pandemic. He said he wasn’t sure when he would go but that his successor would be appointed from within the company.
