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Two decades ago, intent on further propelling the economic and social evolution that was transforming his country, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum started an airline. It was an era when airline start-ups were rare, and successes still rarer. Yet he handed his team a cheque for $10 million and told them to go away and create a carrier for Dubai.
Sheikh Mohammed insisted on the highest standards, that this new carrier compete within Dubai’s long standing ‘Open Skies’ policy and that the airline contribute to the economic success of the emirate. This, he decreed, should be done using this $10 million contribution and no more. Emirates – as this fledgling carrier would come to be known – could not count on any further input. The company would have to succeed on its own.
Today, Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum and his team preside over a fleet that carried some $30 billion in aircraft on order and, by 2012, will have 168 aircraft in service.
Only once in two decades, in its second year, did Emirates lose money. Even more remarkably, in a difficult post-September 11 period also marked by high-oil-prices, Emirates is one of the few carriers to stay in the black.
All this was achieved by throwing the established rule book out of the window. Emirates has done things its own way, surprising the industry with an audacious approach, buying aircraft and establishing new routes during some of the more turbulent times aviation has faced.
Emirates: The Airline of the Future was published to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the carrier, portraying a remarkable story of corporate growth and success. Illustrated with over 300 photographs and some 80,000 words, anecdotal testimonial from those who have been part of this remarkable story has created one of the most vivid and colourful civil aviation books ever published.
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