KUALA LUMPUR: Late delivery of new aircraft has led Dubai-based airline Emirates to extend the service of its current fleet as the carrier expands its route network and strengthens its position in destinations that it is flying to.
Emirates deputy president and chief commercial officer Adnan Kazim said the airline has invested nearly US$3 billion (RM14.1 billion) for its aircraft retrofit programme to upgrade and modify the cabin interior of its airplanes to extend the serviceability of its fleet.
"I think the Boeing B777-9 (late delivery) has impacted us but not necessarily from the network expansion (perspective) because we extended the serviceability of some of our existing aircraft."
"We had to react to the delay of the (new) aircraft (delivery). We managed to deal with this delay," Adnan told Business Times in an exclusive interview recently.
In March this year, Emirates president Tim Clark said the airline might not receive its first B777-9, part of the 777X aircraft family that also includes B777-8, until 2026 from 2025.
The B777-9 will be the world's largest widebody commercial aircraft once it enters the market and rivals the Airbus A350.
But since the introduction of the aircraft, its production developments have hit challenges that led to five years delay despite having nearly 500 orders in total from world's top airlines such as Emirates, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways.
Emirates is the largest airline customer for the B777X aircraft family with 205 jets on order.
The airline is undertaking the largest known fleet retrofit project involving its Airbus A380 and B777-300ERs (extended range) since 2022. The project is expected to complete in April 2025.
Adnan said the upcoming delivery of Emirates' Airbus A330 and A350 will mitigate the B777X late delivery as the airline continues adding new routes to its network.
"The A330 that will be coming would give us a capacity of about 313 or 312 seats in three-class configuration that allows us to open new destinations and develop the routes," he said, adding that bigger aircraft will be used on the new routes that have matured.
In February 2019, Emirates placed an order for 40 A330-900 and 30 A350-900 worth US$21.4 billion at list prices. Delivery of the new airplanes began from 2021 and 2024, respectively.
Emirates said the A330s will be used for its regional destinations and to smaller airports while the A350s will be used for long-haul 8-12 hour flights from its Dubai hub.
Speaking on Boeing's current challenges, Adnan said the American plane manufacturer would eventually resolve its late production and delivery issues although time will tell when.
"We hope that Boeing will resolve their current production, quality or plan for the delivery of the (new) aircraft. There are challenges to overcome and I think Boeing are closely working with the relevant authorities to put in place a plan for what they should do as well."
"The issue has to be resolved. In a timescale, I think it's difficult to put a hand on when exactly," he added.
Although there are other aircraft original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and newcomer such as the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China Ltd (COMAC), Adnan said Emirates will continue to operate Boeing and Airbus airplanes.
"Today we're working with Airbus, with Boeing. There is COMAC. It has development aircraft but we haven't looked at that. I think (in) the future everything is possible but for the time being our order remains with these two manufacturers (Boeing and Airbus)," he said.
Boeing and Airbus are the leaders of the commercial aircraft production for decades while Brazilian Embraer S.A. is tailing closely behind.
COMAC narrowbody aircraft, the ARJ21 is operated by China-based carriers and Indonesia's TransNusa Airlines while its widebody C919 has yet to receive approval certification from European aviation regulator.