Emirates : The Costs Of Building An Empire

Emirates is a fairly young airline, a mere 25 years old, but in that time they have seemingly come out of no where to become a dominating global airline … and now the largest international airline in the world based on international revenue passenger miles flown in 2009.

As Emirates continues to grow the airline will receive a minimum of two new airplanes every month for the next six years … that’s 144 airplanes, in addition to the 151 planes already in service.  In total, Emirates presently has commitments for 203 new aircraft, and will potentially add more to those orders.

While many airlines have larger fleets than Emirates, it is important to keep in mind the ‘smallest’ aircraft in the Emirates fleet is Airbus A330-200 (Configured with 237 or 278 seats) and they will eventually have a fleet if 90 Airbus A380-800s (Configured with 489 seats).

So what is the cost of building the Emirates empire?

For a period of the next twelve months, Emirates will need to pay out US$1.3 billion per month, followed by an addition estimated US$165,217,391 per month for the following 69 months, for a total of US$27 billion.

With the amount of money Emirates has committed to its fleet growth it’s hard to any competitor airline to try and match them on the scale in which they are competing.

Happy Flying!