Emirates- Latest News from the Airline

Monday 23rd of March 2020

Emirates- Latest News from the Airline

On 22nd March, Emirates, a state-owned airline based in Dubai, announced that they will be temporarily suspending all flights due to the drop in global demand amidst the coronavirus pandemic.

Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum: The world has literally gone into quarantine due to the Covid-19 outbreak. This is an unprecedented crisis situation in terms of breadth and scale: geographically, as well as from a health, social, and economic standpoint. Until January 2020, the Emirates Group was doing well against our current financial year targets. But Covid-19 has brought all that to a sudden and painful halt over the past 6 weeks.

The airline also announced a temporary reduction of basic salary for the majority of Emirates Group employees for three months, ranging from 25 per cent to 50 per cent. Employees will continue to be paid their other allowances during this time. Junior level employees will be exempt from basic salary reduction.

However, Emirates reversed its decision of suspension as it "received requests from governments and customers to support the repatriation of travelers". So it will continue to operate passenger flights to 13 destinations, down from its usual 159.

"We continue to watch the situation closely, and as soon as things allow, we will reinstate our services.” Emirates will continue flights to UK, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Australia, South Africa, USA, Canada and South Korea.