Emirates Enters Winter Season with Strong Booking Momentum

Emirates has closed the summer season ahead of expectations and enters winter with strong booking momentum across a broadening range of markets, as the airline continues to invest in its fleet and industry-leading products, and in offering customers greater booking flexibility and comprehensive travel cover.

Between July and August, Emirates carried more than 8.6 million passengers, maintaining healthy seat load factors across its network. The airline is currently operating at around 93% of its pre-disruption capacity, with demand continuing to build as the winter travel season approaches.

Bookings for winter, beginning in late October, are tracking positively despite a broader shift where customers are making travel decisions closer to departure.

South Africa, Brazil, India, Portugal, Egypt, Ghana, Colombia, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are among the markets where demand is currently tracking ahead of last year, alongside Nepal through Emirates' partnership with flydubai.

The UAE also remains a strong outbound market, while demand for premium travel on Emirates continues to grow.

Strong summer demand

Emirates services to and from West Asia, Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and Africa all recorded seat load factors well above 75% during the summer, with particularly strong performance on routes to and from Indonesia, Côte d'Ivoire and across the UK.

Demand for Premium Economy grew across the network, with the Americas recording the strongest growth in demand for this cabin.

Dubai also continued to attract strong inbound traffic. In late August alone, more than half a million customers arrived in Dubai on Emirates flights, up 7% on the same period last year.

Travellers included residents returning ahead of the new school year, new residents relocating to Dubai to live and work, and visitors choosing the city for a late-summer break.

Over the summer, customers had more reasons to choose Emirates. The airline boosted its flexibility proposition with one free date change anywhere across the network, and unlimited free date changes to Dubai.

It also reduced refund fees on Dubai journeys and introduced Comprehensive Travel Cover, a first-of-its-kind policy which includes medical cover protecting against conflict and airspace disruption, backed by airline-managed accommodation, ground support and rebooking where needed.