Emirates and flydubai are now “almost a merger”, according to Emirates’ Chief Commercial Officer. That comment was made last year – and since then, the pair have revealed they wish to become closer still. Key to this is flydubai’s aircraft, which nicely complement Emirates’ widebodies. Together, the pair have 181 destinations from Dubai this July, with only 31 overlapping.
Emirates and hybrid airline flydubai are increasingly working together. Since resuming their strategic codeshare partnership in September 2020, almost 500,000 passengers have flown on the combined network, according to Emirates. The chairman and CEO of the Emirates Group, and also chairman of flydubai, Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, said:
“The Emirates and flydubai partnership continues to grow steadily to offer travelers even better connectivity to Dubai, and through Dubai to an extensive global network. We are seeing strong customer take-up and are excited to take the partnership to the next level by expanding services to new destinations.”
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Growing partnership
The pair started their partnership in autumn 2017. Since then, they have developed extensive codeshares, use the same frequent flyer program, aligned schedules, optimized their networks, and focused on reducing connection times.
flydubai now has 22 destinations from Emirates’ Terminal 3 in Dubai. The pair are attempting to further improve connections between Terminal 3 and Terminal 2, which is where most flydubai flights operate.
They have also right-sized routes. For example, flydubai replaced Emirates to Zagreb, initially winter-seasonally but…