Emirates To Become Largest Wide-Bodied Carrier By 2015: Boston Consulting

Emirates airline will surpass the likes of Air France/KLM, Lufthansa/Swiss, British Airways and other major airlines. Boston Consulting Group (BCG) projects that passenger flow in the Middle East will hit 140 million by 2015 and Emirates will become the world’s largest wide-body carrier.

“We further expect that its regional peers, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways won’t be far behind in the ranks of the top 20. Some of the drivers of this growth are what we expected, and what has been widely reported, such as Middle Eastern megacrriers’ cost advantages, close alignment with the national policies of their home countries and the dynamics of demand aggregation for midpoints hub carriers.”

But BCG is surprised that the regional carriers have maintained their pricing. “Often overlooked, priceing can provide a paricularly insightful understanding of the megacarriers’ current success and future moves.”

BCG estimaes that Emirates will grow its capacity by 9 to 12% annually throguh 2025 - the specific growth rates will depend on how quickly the airlines retires some of its older aircraft - to become the world’s largest operator of wide-body aircraft.

BCG states that Emirates airline pays lower fees at its Dubai hub - something that Emirates has always denied - which serves as a great competitive advantage over its international peers.

However, the challenge for the Middle East airlines is to fill seats. BCG outlines some of the challenges facing the region’s megacarriers:

Competitions from full-service legacy airlines, which can leverage their networks and schedule advantages to attract more-profitable business travellers who prefer nonstop flights aat business-friendly departure times.

Greater regional competition among Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways for connecting traffic to non-hub destinations in the Middle East and interncontinental travel

Competition from low-cost carriers within the Middle East, such as flydubai.com and Air Arabia

The emerhence of airlines in Turkey, India and potentially China that embrace the same type of advantaged hub business models being used by the Middle Eastern megacarriers.

The possibility that foreign governments will restrict market access or alter pricing regimes.