Emirates' US chief dishes details on United partnership, business-class retrofits

14.11.2023 - 16:37 / thepointsguy.com

The United States is one of the most important markets for Emirates airline.

From its megahub in Dubai, Emirates flies to 12 destinations in the U.S., with up to 14 peak-day flights touching down each day across the country.

Emirates even flies two fifth-freedom flights from Newark to Athens and from New York to Milan, both of which continue onwards to Dubai. From there, Emirates offers an impressive connecting network, bringing travelers to cities in India, Southeast Asia and nearly everywhere else in between.

Emirates faces some stiff competition from its Gulf rivals on most of the itineraries that it sells from the U.S., though there's no denying that the Dubai-based carrier has perhaps one of the strongest — and most-awarded — brands in aviation.

The airline is a fan-favorite for TPG readers, and here's the latest on what's going on with the carrier's U.S. network.

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Just over a year ago, Emirates and United announced a once-unthinkable partnership.

The tie-up includes codesharing on select flights, reciprocal loyalty benefits, lounge access in Dubai and much more. In fact, United even started flying to Dubai earlier this year, ending a nearly seven-year-long streak of not serving the Gulf metropolis.

Long-time aviation observers might remember the mid-to-late 2010s, when United, along with Big 3 U.S. rivals Delta and American, unified in protests against the so-called ME3 carriers: Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways.

American, Delta and United alleged that these fast-growing Middle Eastern airlines took subsidies from their respective governments, which enabled the airlines to provide superior service at a competitive price on long-haul routes to the U.S.

But that campaign is most certainly now in the history books, and looking back on the first year of the Emirates-United tie-up shows some serious promise.

"The winner is all three of us, including the passengers and both carriers. It's been a very good win-win situation for both. And it's still a collaborative approach, and we're doing it step by step, and we're reaping the benefits," Essa Ahmad, Emirates divisional vice president for the U.S. and Canada, said in an exclusive interview with TPG.

Ahmad specifically cited the increased feed that Emirates is seeing in three key United hubs (Chicago, San Francisco and Houston) as one of the big bright spots of the partnership. Beyond Dubai, many passengers are looking to travel to India, but that market has been a bit tricky for the two carriers since the Indian government blocked Emirates and United from codesharing on flights from Dubai to India.

Even so, the partnership still seems to be working in the