4 Comments on “Video interviews with Emirates’ Clark, Delta’s Anderson”

1. Tim Clarke at 24:14:

   We didn’t order these to be delivered overnight, so if you look at the 175 -ERs, the delivery stream will finish by 2022/2023. In the process the older -ERs which came in — given the 12 year rule — will start to be retired and phased out. Equally, the first A380s — the first A380 that was given to us in July 2008 — will be retired in July 2020, and a new one will replace it. So, as far as Airbus is concerned, they can see a continuum of orders coming from Emirates for A380s, simply on retirement. But, if you then add the incremental units that if we could, we would buy, then it’s another ballpark altogether — and of course we have asked them to make the thing a bit bigger, but there doesn’t seem to be too much interest in that at the moment — but anyway, we’ll see.

   So, the last 777-300ERs on order will only arrive in 2022/2023. Would that seem to indicate that EK might be tinterested in converting some of the last 77Ws that’ll be arriving, to 777-9s?

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2. Tim Clark is a very impressive guy, the interview he had given was just effortless.

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   • Very impressive indeed. For those who don’t grasp what’s happening in the global airline business, perhaps it would be a wise thing to listen to what Tim Clark has to say.

     Tim Clark at 04:50:

     Listen, what is happening is not about the Gulf Carriers, it’s about the realignment of business models and in those I include the alliance players, to adjust and align what they are doing with the way the global economy has shifted significantly since the mid nineties, to reflect the growing demand for air travel, which takes different forms in terms of the traffic patterns that we’re now seeing — emerging countries to emerging countries; emerging countries to developed countries; developed countries to areas that perhaps where considered to be, and I would describe that by way of an example — the African Continent where there was a massive pullback in the seventies and eighties — but here we have new markets emerging — so, what you’re seeing is the recognition that; one, the Gulf Carriers are not going to go away; two, the size and scale of what they are doing on a global scale has to be reckoned with — there is no point to continue to throw bricks or trying to take us down, because you’ve doing that for years and years and it hasn’t got you anywhere. In fact, if you look back to when you started, and what we were then, and what we are now; hey ho there’s absolutely no point to it. But why have we been successful. Why have we been able to grow our business — because we have been able to align what we do with the new world order is functioning. They must do the same — to survive. Alliances and the current structure of them — in my view, in my humble opinion — do not reflect what the 21st century requires of the industry. They do reflect what the airline industry required of them in the seventies and in the eighties — but you know that was light-years ago. So, basically what we are doing with Qantas — and perhaps what James Hogan has been doing with his clustering of other carriers, and Akbar, of course, going into OneWorld — it suggests that there is change of it, but we are not changing our policies of aligning with what I would consider perhaps fairly Jurassic blocs. We want to be able to charter our own destiny, go anywhere, and if we can fine like-minded thinkers who see benefit, mutual benefit — these are partnerships, these aren’t a multifaceted complex alliance, these are simple partnerships — we’ve had one with Sri Lankan many years ago, we’ve had multiple arrangements with carriers. Qantas is probably the biggest one. Hopefully, it will be the most successful one.

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     Question at 23:00: You mentioned the huge backlog you’ve got … and you and the rest of the Gulf Carriers have, and there’s an interesting stats that was on twitter earlier about your order book exceeds the value of the entire US airline industry apparently.

     Tim Clark: I wouldn’t have thought that was difficult…

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3. Tim Clark was certainly not the first with this internationality notion.
   See Juan Terry Trippe and his Pan Am empire in the late 20’s and early 30’s as he built a consortium of airlines throughout Latin America,, and on into China, despite the best (or worst) efforts of a the DC idiots to stop him or control him.
   Avianca, Avensa, Pan Air do Brazil, Panagra, CAAC, all were created or taken over and modified by Trippe.
   And I may have missed a few.

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