Emirates (airline)

Emirates is one of the two main airlines of the United Arab Emirates, the other being Etihad Airways. It is based in Al Garhoud, Dubai, and is part of The Emirates Group, which is owned by the government of Dubai. Emirates is the world's largest long-haul airline and the biggest airline in the Middle East. It flies more than 3,600 times every week from Terminal 3 of Dubai International Airport.

The airline flies to more than 150 cities in 80 countries across six continents. It uses a fleet of over 250 planes and also has a big business in cargo, with Emirates SkyCargo handling many goods.

Emirates started in March 1985 because another airline, Gulf Air, reduced its service to Dubai. It was founded by Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, who is still the chairman today. The airline grew quickly, adding more planes and destinations. In October 2008, all its flights moved to Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport.

Today, Emirates uses both Airbus and Boeing planes, especially wide-body aircraft. As of January 2026, it is the world's largest operator of the Airbus A380, with many of these planes in service. It is also the biggest operator of the Boeing 777.

History

Main article: History of Emirates (airline)

Emirates started in March 1985 with support from Dubai's ruler, Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Its first flight was on October 25, 1985, from Dubai International Airport to Jinnah International Airport in Karachi, Pakistan. The airline used rented planes for these early trips.

Over the years, Emirates grew quickly. It added new routes and got newer planes. Even during tough times like the Gulf War, the airline kept flying. By the late 1990s, Emirates had some of the biggest planes in the sky. The airline kept getting bigger and now flies all over the world from Dubai. In 2024, Emirates planned to move to a new airport once it was finished.

Corporate management

The airline is part of The Emirates Group, which belongs to the government of Dubai through Investment Corporation of Dubai. Emirates has made a profit each year except for its second year, growing by at least 20% every year. In its first 11 years, the airline grew quickly.

In 2015, Emirates paid dividends of AED 2.6 billion (US$708 million), up from AED 1 billion (US$272 million) in 2014. Since 1999, the Dubai government has received money from Emirates for its original investment.

Structure and employment

Main article: Emirates subsidiaries

Emirates works in many areas such as airport services, engineering, catering, and tour operator activities. By March 2020, the company had many employees, including cabin crew, flight deck crew, engineers, and staff at overseas stations and subsidiary companies. The larger Emirates Group employed many people.

Emirates offers good benefits to its workers, like health plans and paid leave. The company also shares its profits with employees. In recent years, workers received bonuses equal to many weeks of pay.

Environmental record

Emirates says it produces less pollution than other airlines because its planes use less fuel. In 2023, the airline announced plans to spend money to research ways to use less fossil fuel in flying, including developing alternative fuels and energy solutions.

Business trends

The key trends for Emirates are (as of the financial year ending 31 March):

Branding

In the 1990s, Emirates started using the slogan "So be good to yourself, Fly Emirates" in its ads. In 1999, they showed a special airplane with its old and new paint designs. By 2004, the slogan changed to "Fly Emirates. Keep Discovering," and later added others like "Fly Emirates To over Six Continents" and "Hello Tomorrow". Today, the airline uses the slogan "Fly Better".

In 2008, Emirates gave its 16,000 employees new uniforms designed by Simon Jersey. The designs included new hats, red pleats in skirts, fitted blouses, and red leather shoes and bags. Flight attendants got new uniforms too, with male attendants wearing brown suits and female attendants having similar styles.

Since 1985, Emirates airplanes have had the United Arab Emirates flag on their tails, Arabic writing on the engines, and the "Emirates" name in both Arabic and English on the body. In 1999, they changed the colors and design of these details.

In 2022, Emirates made two ads featuring a flight attendant on top of the Burj Khalifa. One ad talked about travel rules during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the other promoted the Expo 2020 with a special painted airplane flying around the attendant.

Sponsorship

Infrastructure

From 2011 until 2022, Emirates helped support the Emirates Air Line cable car over the River Thames in East London.

Since 2015, Emirates has helped the England-based Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth on the south coast. The airline planned to paint the landmark red, but after talking with the people of Portsmouth and Southsea, Emirates agreed to color the tower blue and gold, with red lettering of the Emirates name. This was because Portsmouth F.C. (the local football team) is colored blue and rival football team Southampton F.C. is colored red. It is now named "Emirates Spinnaker Tower".

Sports

Cricket

Emirates supports Cricket Australia, Lord's Taverners, and Pro Arch Tournament. Its name also appears on international cricket umpires' shirts. Emirates was also an official partner of the International Cricket Council. This connection gave Emirates a place with all major ICC tournaments, including the 2011, 2015, and 2019 ICC Cricket World Cups, the Women's Cricket World Cups, ICC Champions Trophy, and ICC World Twenty20.

Emirates is the Twenty20 shirt sponsor of Durham County Cricket Club and has naming rights to the Riverside Ground, now known as Emirates Riverside, as well as the naming rights to the Emirates Old Trafford Cricket Ground, and is the shirt sponsor of Lancashire County Cricket Club. Emirates was also a big sponsor of the Kings XI Punjab (seasons two-four) and Deccan Chargers (season five), teams of the Indian Premier League, the largest domestic cricket tournament in the world.

Football

Emirates was a sponsor of FIFA and the FIFA World Cup, but stopped its sponsorship in early 2015 because of some issues within FIFA, as well as FIFA's decision to award the 2022 FIFA World Cup to Qatar.

Emirates was the main shirt sponsor of Chelsea from August 2001 until May 2005. Since the 2006–07 season, it has been the main shirt sponsor of Arsenal (2006 to 2028, including Arsenal's home ground Emirates Stadium), AC Milan since the 2010–11 season, Real Madrid since the 2013–14 season, Benfica since the 2015–16 season, Olympique Lyonnais since the 2020–21 season, and Étoile du Sahel since the 2023–24 season. It was also the main shirt sponsor of the New York Cosmos. Emirates is also the title sponsor of the FA Cup and Emirates Cup. It was also the main shirt sponsor of Paris Saint-Germain (until May 2019), and Hamburger SV until June 2020.

In August 2009, the Scottish Junior Football Association announced that Emirates would sponsor its Scottish Cup competition. Emirates sponsors Asian Football Confederation travel and play, in the AFC Champions League and AFF Suzuki Cup. It also sponsors FC Dallas in Major League Soccer.

Football clubs currently sponsored by Emirates

• Arsenal
• Arsenal WFC
• Lyon
• AC Milan
• AC Milan WFC
• Real Madrid
• Real Madrid B
• Real Madrid W
• Benfica
• Benfica B
• Benfica under-19
• Étoile du Sahel

Rugby

Emirates has sponsored the Super League Rugby League team, the Warrington Wolves between 2013 and 2017.

It is also the main sponsor of USA Rugby and the World Rugby panel of international referees. Since 2015, Emirates has sponsored the South African Super Rugby team, the Lions and has naming rights of the team and the Ellis Park rugby stadium.

It also sponsors the Rugby World Cup since 2007 and the Women's Rugby World Cup starting in 2025.

Basketball

On 23 September 2019, Emirates worked with Beirut Basketball Club to support their 2019–2020 season; this included branding during televised matches, social media, and game tickets. The season was later stopped because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Emirates later signed a multi-year deal with the club in September 2023, becoming its airline and jersey sponsor for the next three seasons.

On 8 February 2024, Emirates signed a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) to become the official airline of the league. This deal also included naming rights for the NBA Cup, becoming the Emirates NBA Cup starting in the 2024 season. Also, an Emirates patch would be added to NBA referee jerseys.

Other sports

• Horse racing - Emirates supports the Dubai International Racing Carnival. It supported the Australian Turf Club's Autumn and Spring Carnival until 2011, and the Melbourne Cup Carnival from 2003 until 2017. It is also a regular sponsor of another equestrian sport, showjumping, notably at events in Dubai with the CSI5* Emirates Airline Dubai Grand Prix, and with the Longines Masters series, which currently runs CSI5* competitions in Hong Kong, Paris, and New York (formerly held in Los Angeles).
• Tennis - It supports all four major tennis tournaments: the Australian, French and US Opens, and Wimbledon (since 2024). Since the 2012 season, Emirates also supported the US Open Series, a six-week summer tennis season leading up to the US Open. Its support was to run until 2019.
• Formula One (F1) - It was the sponsor of the British F1 team McLaren in the 2006 season. It was also the official airline sponsor of Formula One from the 2013 season until the 2022 season. It was outbid by rival Qatar Airways for the 2023 season.
• Australian football - Emirates supports Collingwood Football Club in the Australian Football League.
• Baseball - Since the 2016 season, Emirates is the official airline of the Los Angeles Dodgers of Major League Baseball.
• Cycling - Since 2017, Emirates has been the sponsor of the UAE Team Emirates (former Team Lampre-Mérida), which is a UCI World Tour Cycling Team. Being a World Tour, the team gets automatic entry to the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia, and Vuelta a Espana, as well as all the major one-day races.
• Sailing - Emirates is the main sponsor of the Emirates Team New Zealand, winners of the 35th America's Cup in sailing.

Spokesperson

In 2015, Jennifer Aniston appeared in two commercials for the airline. Since 2023, Penélope Cruz has been the brand ambassador for Emirates.

Expo 2020

Emirates became one of the official premier partners of the Expo 2020 event hosted by Dubai. To remember the event, Emirates showed a special design in three colors (orange, green, and blue) to show the three themes of the event, being Opportunity, Sustainability, and Mobility. One of its A380s was painted in a blue, nose-to-tail design that said, "Join The Making of a New World". The support lasted from 1 October 2021 till the event's end on 31 March 2022.

Network

Main article: List of Emirates destinations

Emirates flies more than 3,000 times every week to 137 places in 77 countries. All of these flights start from Dubai. In November 2024, Emirates added a new flight to Antananarivo that began in December 2024. In December 2025, Emirates added a third daily flight to Mauritius for more travel choices.

In October 2024, Emirates started flying again to Adelaide Airport on October 28, 2024. This gives people another way to reach the United Kingdom or Europe. In March 2025, Emirates plans to start flights to three new places in Asia: Shenzhen in China, Da Nang in Vietnam, and Siem Reap in Cambodia.

Alliance

Emirates works with other airlines but is not part of any big airline groups called Oneworld, SkyTeam, or Star Alliance. In 2000, Emirates thought about joining Star Alliance but decided to stay independent. This lets them make decisions faster.

Codeshare agreements

Emirates shares flight information with these airlines:

• Aegean Airlines
• Air Canada
• Air Mauritius
• Air Seychelles
• airBaltic
• Airlink
• Avianca
• Azul Brazilian Airlines
• Bangkok Airways
• Batik Air
• Batik Air Malaysia
• Caribbean Airlines
• China Southern Airlines
• Condor
• Copa Airlines
• flydubai
• Garuda Indonesia
• Gol Linhas Aéreas Inteligentes
• Gulf Air
• Icelandair
• ITA Airways
• Japan Airlines
• Jetstar
• Korean Air
• LATAM Brasil
• Qantas
• Renfe (railway)
• Royal Air Maroc
• S7 Airlines
• Swedish Railways (railway)
• SNCF (railway)
• SpiceJet
• TAP Air Portugal
• Thai Airways International
• Trenitalia (railway)
• Tunisair
• Uganda Airlines
• United Airlines
• WestJet

Interline agreements

Emirates also has travel agreements with these airlines:

• Aer Lingus
• Africa World Airlines
• Air Algérie
• Air Burkina
• Air Caledonie
• Air China
• Air Peace
• Air Tahiti Nui
• All Nippon Airways
• Aurigny
• Biman Bangladesh Airlines
• China Airlines
• Condor
• Corsair International
• DAT
• Deutsche Bahn (railway)
• Etihad Airways
• Fiji Airways
• flydubai
• Japan Transocean Air
• Kam Air
• KTX (railway)
• Kuwait Airways
• Lao Airlines
• LATAM Ecuador
• Loganair
• Loong Air
• Maldivian
• Mandarin Airlines
• Mauritania Airlines
• Myanmar Airways International
• Nepal Airlines
• Philippine Airlines
• Royal Brunei Airlines
• Singapore Airlines
• Sun Express
• SriLankan Airlines
• Sky Express
• Starlux Airlines
• Swiss International Air Lines
• Swiss Railways (railway)
• Turkish Airlines

Divisions

Emirates Executive started in 2013 for special flights for businesses and private groups. It uses one Airbus ACJ319 jet that can hold 19 people, with private rooms and a lounge.

Emirates SkyCargo is the cargo part of Emirates. It started in October 1985 and began using special cargo planes in 2001. It flies to 10 special cargo places and uses some of the same routes as the passenger flights. During the 2020 pandemic, SkyCargo used some passenger planes like the 777-300ER and A380 to carry more goods. In 2022, Emirates ordered five more cargo planes.

Fleet

Main article: Emirates fleet

Emirates has 261 passenger airplanes and 13 cargo planes. They use 116 Airbus A380s and 128 Boeing 777s, including special versions like the 777-200LRs and 777-300ERs. They also have 17 Airbus A350-900s and one small Airbus A319 for special trips.

Emirates has ordered many big planes over the years. In 2014, they ordered 150 Boeing 777X planes. Later, they ordered new A330-900s, A350-900s, and Boeing 787 Dreamliners. In 2023, they added more orders for Boeing and Airbus planes. The first A350-900 joined their fleet in late 2024, and more are coming.

Livery

First livery (1985–1999)

The first design for Emirates, made by Negus & Negus, looked similar to later designs. The name “Emirates” was written in a different style, smaller, and placed at the top of the windows, followed by the name in Arabic. All planes with this first design were either repainted or taken out of service. This design was no longer used by 2005.

Second livery (1999–2023)

The second design for Emirates showed the UAE flag on the tail and had a white body with the golden word “Emirates” on the top. This design started in November 1999 on the Boeing 777-300 and the Airbus A330-200, and then was added to all new planes from that time. By 2000, the design was being used on more planes, and by 2005, all planes had this look. This design also kept the Arabic name, but in smaller letters than before. The Emirates logo in Arabic was painted gold on all engines. In 2005, the red word “Emirates” was added to the bottom of the plane.

Current livery (2023–present)

On March 16, 2023, Emirates showed its new design. This design has a more moving look of the UAE flag on the tail with a 3D effect. The ends of the wings are now red, showing the Emirates logo in white Arabic writing. Passengers sitting by the window can see the colors of the UAE flag painted on the inside of the wing ends, facing the body of the plane.

The airline’s Airbus A350s will also have the updated UAE flag on the inside of the wing ends.

Services

Cabin

Emirates offers special seats for passengers who want extra space and comfort. In the front of the plane, there are private rooms where passengers can relax. These rooms have doors, small fridges, and big screens for watching shows.

For passengers who are not in the front, there are comfortable seats that can turn into flat beds. These seats have special lights, places to charge devices, and many movies and shows to watch. Everyone on the plane can enjoy lots of entertainment, no matter where they are sitting.

Catering

Passengers on Emirates flights get meals made just for them. These meals follow special rules to make sure they are clean and safe to eat. Emirates grows its own fresh vegetables to use on its planes. Passengers can ask for special meals if they need them.

In-flight entertainment system (IFE)

Emirates has special systems to keep passengers entertained during flights. These systems have many movies, music, and games that passengers can choose from. There are also news updates and maps showing where the plane is. Passengers can send messages or use the internet while they fly.

In-flight entertainment system (ICE)

Emirates’ ICE system gives passengers lots of things to do and watch. It has many movies, TV shows, music, and games. Passengers can choose what they want to watch or listen to in many different languages. The system also shows news and lets passengers see outside the plane with special cameras.

Business model

Main article: Emirates business model

Emirates is a big airline. Some other airlines, like Air France-KLM, British Airways, Lufthansa, and Qantas, think it makes things hard for them. They worry because people can fly to many places by stopping in Dubai. They also think Emirates has an advantage because it is closely linked to the government of Dubai.

Emirates says this isn’t true. It says it pays its taxes and has paid money to the government every year. Emirates also competes with other airlines from the Middle East, like Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways.

Sustainability

Emirates is working to reduce carbon emissions by using a special kind of fuel called sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). They started exploring this in 2017 and have worked with top fuel companies like Neste and Shell Aviation.

In 2023, Emirates tested flights using SAF in one engine of their planes. Their first regular flight using this fuel was on October 24, 2023, from Dubai to Sydney, Australia. Now, Emirates has suppliers providing SAF at several airports worldwide, including Paris, Lyon, Oslo, Amsterdam, London, Singapore, and Dubai.

Controversies

See also: Human rights in the United Arab Emirates

Emirates has sometimes faced criticism for how it treats its workers, though the airline says this is not true and the issues are getting better each year.

There have been a few legal cases involving the airline. In 2016, a man from Italy sued Emirates after feeling very uncomfortable during a long flight. In 2019, a woman from Australia said she felt unwell during a flight because she did not get enough water.

In 2022, Emirates stopped flying to Nigeria because of a disagreement with the Nigerian government, but flights started again in 2024. In 2023, two people sued Emirates for saying things that were not completely true in their advertisements.

Also in 2023, a man from Pakistan said the airline did not meet good standards for its service. In 2024, the United States government said Emirates needed to pay a fine for flying in an area that was not allowed. Later that same year, another lawsuit was started but it was not successful.

Emirates continues to fly to Russia even though many other airlines stopped, which has caused some people to question the decision.