UAE: Dubai carrier Emirates reports 35,000 passengers stranded, 2,000 tonnes of cargo disrupted from volcanic ash-related groundings

Record ID: 588924

  • Title: UAE: Dubai carrier Emirates reports 35,000 passengers stranded, 2,000 tonnes of cargo disrupted from volcanic ash-related groundings
  • Date: 23rd April 2010
  • Summary: DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (APRIL 20, 2010) (REUTERS) EMIRATES AIRLINE PRESIDENT TIM CLARK GETTING READY FOR NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMIRATES AIRLINE PRESIDENT TIM CLARK, SAYING: "Emirates has actually had to cancel about 250 of its flights, it is losing -- in terms of passenger revenue -- about 10 million dollars a day and we have had up to 6,000 passengers accommodated in the town and so far we are pushing 90,000 to 100,000 passengers on the network who have been disrupted. And effectively with 30 aircrafts on the ground, this means that we have about 20 percent of our fleet sitting in Dubai doing very little." VARIOUS OF EMIRATES AIRCRAFTS MOVING ON RUNWAY AT DUBAI'S AIRPORT EMIRATES NETWORK CONTROL CENTRE ROOM AT EMIRATES HEADQUARTERS IN DUBAI VARIOUS OF EMIRATES OPERATIONAL STAFF DISCUSSING AIRLINES DEPARTURES (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMIRATES AIRLINE PRESIDENT TIM CLARK, SAYING: "We talk a lot about what's going on in Dubai but at the outstations in Europe alone we have 35,000 passengers to date who are waiting to be told when they can fly, this is just on the Emirates network." VARIOUS OF EMIRATES NETWORK CONTROL ROOM (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMIRATES AIRLINE PRESIDENT TIM CLARK, SAYING: "I'm fairly confident that on the same basis that we've managed through all the crisis in the airline over the last 10 years or 15 years and we all know what those are, we've always managed to get ourselves into good shape fairly quickly after that and I know that we will manage this, we will get ourselves back to normal, we will recover our cash and profitability curve, fairly, fairly quickly." EMIRATES AIRCRAFT ON RUNWAY (SOUNDBITE) (English) EMIRATES AIRLINE PRESIDENT TIM CLARK, SAYING: "Basically this is the sixth day, we are down to 60 million dollars of income depletion and well we have got 5 or 6 million dollars which we are spending on keeping our passengers in good shape." PEOPLE LEAVING AT THE END OF THE NEWS CONFERENCE
  • Embargoed: 8th May 2010 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes,Travel / Tourism
  • Reuters ID: LVA748BJ1Q87N8NU9VMIJPTF0HMB
  • Story Text: Dubai's government-owned carrier Emirates -- the biggest airline in the Middle East -- has 35,000 stranded passengers and 2,000 tonnes of cargo disrupted from volcanic ash-related groundings, the company said on Tuesday (April 20).
    "Emirates has had to cancel about 250 of its flights, it is losing in terms of passenger revenue about 10 million dollars a day and we have had up to about 6,000 passengers accommodated in the town and so far we are pushing 90,000 - 100,000 passengers on the network who have been disrupted. And effectively with 30 aircrafts on the ground, this means that we have about 20 percent of our fleet sitting in Dubai doing very little," said Tim Clark, the company's president.
    "We talk a lot about what's going on in Dubai but at the outstations in Europe alone we have 35,000 passengers to date who are waiting to be told when they can fly, this is just on the Emirates network," he added.
    Emirates Airlines called the news conference on Tuesday to explain how its services have been effected by ash from the eruption of an Icelandic volcano.
    Clark added that he expected the number of delays and bottlenecks to balloon if the groundings stay in effect through the end of April but added that he was confident of Emirates' ability to recover the losses made as a result of this crisis.
    "I am fairly confident that on the same basis that we have managed through all the crisis in the airline over the last 10 years or 15 years and we all know what those are, we have always managed to get ourselves into good shape fairly quickly after that and I know that we will manage this, we will get ourselves back to normal, we will recover our cash and profitability curve, fairly, fairly quickly."
    Emirates was re-routing flights southward and eastward in Europe, away from Hamburg and Frankfurt and toward Zurich and Vienna, said Clark.
    Flights from large parts of Europe were set to resume on Tuesday under a deal to free up airspace closed by a huge ash cloud, but strengthened eruptions from the Icelandic volcano threatened to unravel the plans.
    The United Arab Emirates is home to Emirates airline, the largest customer for the Airbus A380 superjumbo, as well as Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and Sharjah's Air Arabia.
    UAE rival Etihad Airways, based in Abu Dhabi, also cancelled all flights to Europe, as well as Russia, until further notice.
    Budget carrier Air Arabia said on Monday (April 19) it has not felt any major impact from the volcanic ash cloud that grounded thousands of flights in Europe.
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