Having already recovered about 85% of its pre-pandemic passenger flights to 120 destinations, Emirates plans to recover 70% of its capacity by the winter season of 2021.

Speaking at the Arabian Travel Market event in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates on May 4, 2021, Emirates’ Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) Adnan Kazim said that the airline was focused on its recovery plans. The executive outlined that the airline had “a plan to get back to almost 70% of [its] capacity to be recovered by winter 2021,” betting on the global COVID-19 vaccine roll-out and eased restrictions for international air travel.

“The future will be much brighter in terms of the recovery and things will look better, particularly we’re aiming for major events happening in Dubai […] and that’s exactly what we’re mapping capacity and the network to meet that requirement for the Expo to be a successful event,” Kazim said.

The airline has already restored about 85% of passenger flights since March 2020 and currently operates to 120 destinations with its Boeing 777 jets. However, the majority of the Dubai-based air carrier‘s Airbus A380 wide-bodies still remain grounded. According to Planespotters.com data, Emirates operates a total of 145 Boeing 777 jets, out of which only 2 jets are marked as currently parked. Meanwhile, the opposite situation is happening with the A380 aircraft, where 98 of its 117 superjumbos are still inactive. 

Kazim outlined that depending on the demand, around 40 Airbus A380s could be returned to service in the summer season of 2021 as he saw promising levels of flight bookings for July and August 2021.