Emirates plans to add 37 new planes to its fleet in the fiscal year beginning April as it expands operations in Asia with new destinations. The airline will receive 21 Airbus A380 superjumbos and 16 Boeing 777s in the year ending March 2017, CCO Thierry Antinori said Wednesday. The aircraft are worth US$14.5b at list prices. Emirates already serves about 150 destinations in about 80 countries using the industry’s biggest wide-body fleet. The airline will begin operations to Panama in February in what will be the longest nonstop commercial flight by any carrier. Emirates also plans to retire 26 airplanes, including some A330s and A340s, from its fleet, Antinori said. The airline is studying an order for Airbus’s A350-900 and -1000 variants along with Boeing’s 787-9 and -10 models. <br/>
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Emirates’ policy of operating one of the youngest fleets in the world saw the airline improve its fuel efficiency by 1% to 0.3057 litres per tonne kilometre in its last financial year. The improvement came from the new 24 new aircraft and retired 10 older that the airline brought in over the 12 months to March 31, 2015. The airline said its fuel efficiency of 0.3057 litres per tonne kilometre is 14% better than IATA average. It was 14.5% better in the previous financial year. The improvement in fuel efficiency would be welcomed by any airline, where fuel is often the single largest operational cost. In 2014-2015, Emirates airline spent US$7.8b on jet fuel, 34.6% of its operational costs. But with its fleet expanding to 232 aircraft, at the end of its last financial year, Emirates fuel consumption was up 10.2% to 8,975,666 tonnes. <br/>
Etihad Airways will nearly triple its Emirati workforce over the next 4 years, with plans to hire 5,000 nationals by 2020, the airline said Wednesday. Etihad currently employs more than 3,000 Emiratis after hiring 1,200 nationals in 2015, it said, adding that it “plans to employ a further 5,000 Emirati employees by 2020.” This would be a 166% increase on 3,000 nationals presently working at the airline. James Hogan, Etihad president and CE, said that the airline has been a “driving force” in the country’s nationalisation programme. In the United Arab Emirates there is a nationalisation policy called “Emiratisation” that favours hiring nationals in a bid to increase their presence in the private sector. Emiratis are a minority in the UAE, where the population is dominated by expatriate workers. <br/>