As anyone who has been following the airline industry knows, the US and Gulf carriers have been battling over Open Skies for well over a year now. The US carriers argue that the Gulf carriers are subsidized, and therefore shouldn’t be able to compete under a treaty intended to promote free trade and competition.
Continue reading: Emirates Is Hungary For New Fifth Freedom US Flights
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
Business wise it just gives them another avenue into the US. I saw the Anniston Emirates commercial for the 1st time last night and it was interesting and I guess she is getting flack about it but it will drive business to them. They are relatively unknown in the US except for folks on here. The average American has no idea who they are but if Emirates dropped prices a little with a flt to Hungary I'm sure it would be successful . The air carrier world is a little odd now (read greedy & poor service) from my point of view and while not a FF I know how business works and Emirates is in the hunt to grow.It might help to put pressure on US carriers. I saw your alert about cheap flts to Eur this summer Ben thx and nice job
If this goes through then there will be 5 Emirates daily flights from JFK (three non-stop JFK-DXB, one JFK-MXP-DXB, and one JFK-BUD-DXB.) I remember the days when there was only one JFK-DXB EK flight daily and it was almost always full/oversold. Heck back then there was even a JFK-HAM-DXB flight but that was axed. I just doubt EK will have decent loads on the JFK-BUD route but who knows. Hopefully there will be good award availability or hopefully the prices in Y are cheap.
If they would want to get another fifth freedom route I don't see why they would do it from JFK since they already have the MXP route from there. If they would route it from LAX that would be a huge win as it would give west coast passengers more competition/choices to get to Europe from LAX/SFO
I am quite sure this will not be a "profitable" (whatever that means for EK) route as theres no connecting traffic in BUD at all. If prices are right (read: low enough, as in 500 EUR-ish return), there might be some Eco demand BUD-US, but AA, DL and Malév failed on the JFK route (with the latter providing a sizable network in Europe for connections). There is a reason why the only airlines to fly in and out of BUD to a decent amount of cities are Wizzair and Ryanair...
Wouldn't it make more sense for EY to set up a Euro hub? They could use their partner airlines for feeder traffic.
DXB-BUD-JFK or even DXB-BUD-LAX/SEA won't have the yields. A better bet would be to set up shop in Birmingham or Manchester. EK does have UK-US 5th freedom routes and strong route partners in AS and B6 for North American Feed.
Fares BUD-DXB will be quite low probably, as they'll have hard competition on this route. W6 flies BUD-DWC, and tickets are sometimes just 39 EUR!
People in that area of Europe are price sensitive and used to fly lowcosts.
Maybe they also hope that people from small cities in Europe will fly to BUD with lowcosts, and connect there on their own risk to EK (W6 and FR have an extensive network in BUD).
"A very tasteless and classless joke." Lighten up Francis. Ben made a corny pun.
It's like saying I enjoy traveling to Istanbul every Thanksgiving because I like Turkey.
I basically agree with Ben's conclusion: this is a rather 'ideological route'.
Though there are a few facts that might be taken into consideration why it will still be launched:
1) Urge to grow for Emirates, with the many airplanes they ordered and about to join their fleet (not to mention their not well known margin calculation)
2) Growth potential of Budapest Airport (last year traffic grew with more than 14% - though it was mainly driven by low cost carriers)
3) This route is an underserved one as it was pointed out by anna.aero (potentially 275.000 people searched on skyscanner for this route and 12% purchased ticked, which is well above skyscanner average)
4) Willingness of low cost carriers to collect traffic from surrounding airports for such flights (so that Budapest can act as a hub for Emirates or for the company that would start such a service)
On the other hand:
1) This route will be price sensitive
2) There is already a big competition in the transatlantic market (ok, with a stopover somewhere in Western Europe)
3) Air Serbia (in Belgrade) is about to launch transatlantic flights - as Etihad partly owns them they have the fund for that
4) Summer schedule already started, and it is not likely they'd introduce such a flight during wintertime
As I'm based in Budapest, I'd love to see new services, but this is a very unlikely one.
Interesting. I have zero interest in visiting the middle east, yet there are several ME carriers I'd like to try. This might be a good way to try out Emirates if it goes through.
@Bruno: Emirates started the Budapest-Dubai flights in October 2014...
So you can already check the prices for this route to see if it as per your guess 🙂
Oh I totally disagree that Emirates is not right on the mark with this. I hate my flag carriers. They have old tired crews with little customer service skills. If you told me I could fly Emirates from SFO to Budapest with a shower I would make that my primary way to get to Europe. I love this capitalist move! But then us frequent fliers don't mean anything to the industry.
Well, if BUD can be a 5th freedom hub for EK, with new EK routes fr BUD into Asia, n a new subdiary for intra europe flights?
That may change the game..
If this route happens I will be buying two business class seats ASAP! Screw the greedy American carriers with their lousy lounges & non existent award redemptions.
Air Transat is also already flying from YYZ to BUD and to PRG from YUL and YYZ! OK with very low frequencies and during summer only. But it is not their first season, meaning they believe in the market.
AC is flying under its Rouge brand from YYZ to BUD, PRG and WAW seasonnaly, with maybe LO for connecting traffic in WAW. So they believe in the market too.
Furthermore DL is flying JFK-PRG seasonaly with OK as local partner for connecting traffic.
In addition LO flies from WAW to ORD, JFK and YYZ with feeder traffic at home and at their partner hub in ORD and YYZ.
So basicaly I think the transatlantic market from Eastern European countries is developping and Canada might be a better guess for EK than the US 😉
Air Transat already flies seasonal BUD-YYZ and AC ROUGE is starting same rout this summer.