Emirates Cancels All Flights Indefinitely, Changes Their Mind Almost Immediately

The world has overreacted due to excessive media coverage and governments trying to "out-do" each other in measures taken. None of these measures seem to have made any difference, with the exception of China. Meanwhile millions of people are losing their incomes and livelihoods. Not to mention the irreparable damage to society.

When an airline that money is no object for shuts down, you know it's serious.

I,m speechless as well Lucky....thinking of the thousands of staff who have tons of dependants to feed.....

While surprising, their operation would be a logistical nightmare if they carried on as with so few people flying and on exclusively widebody planes, it would be almost impossible to fill them up to any meaningful capacity.

Well there definitely goes my trip to Vienna in June. My ticket was purchased via Qantas, so let the refund/cancellation merry go round begin!

Elal operated repatriation flights from Lima to Tlv

It says on their website they are only giving out travel vouchers (inc. cancellation fee) even if THEY cancel. I had a flight booked home for Tuesday/Wednesday. Am I understanding this correctly, and if so how do we get a full refund?

If you look a the COVID map below, specially between Asia and both Africa and Europe, it is clear that the ME3 and foremost EK were Key in propagating the Virus, it matches their network. Once there, US and EU airlines ( train also ) completed the task of getting it from hubs to every mid-sized town. To say nothing of North-Americans flocking to Florida where you are, for "Spring Break"

China took drastic measures from the onset, while the world watched idle, waited a full 6 weeks before taking half measures. Chinese Red Cross officials were shocked at seeing Italians still going about their business or shipping as usual : Italy may get as many cases as China did, they already have 50% more deads.

Bottom line, airlines have been the prime mover of the pandemic, whether one likes it or not.

https://www.bing.com/covid?fbclid=IwAR2Qa0jH2HIGanneOBO33PM_6E7EEPLInMMzrW0XiFLRV3rTAkzHPVUrOpg

It is not an over reaction.

We need to flatten the curve.
If we are successful, we will all look back and say we over reacted. I pray this is the case

But we need time to completely overhaul the way we do medicine.

We need time to get supplies

We need time to get a $@&”@ test

I am working 12-16 hours per day, and have had no day off for 3 weeks trying to get my medical system ready.

I just told my staff that they have to see COVID patients with a crappy mask, because we have no N95 masks

We have no way to test 99% of our patients

Thank god for the measures put in place

We will get through this. But if you understood how unprepared America is for this disease you would be quiet and stay at home for a few weeks.

Again, if we are lucky this will be a nothing burger. Which means we were successful

This is a time of starvation for the industry - it's all about survival of the fittest. In the most ruthless terms the ME3 benefit from having strong "anti-labor" laws that will allow them to drastically cut without remorse - not only at the airline level, but in related levels like the airport and service and support industries.

At least Dubai isn't reliant predominantly on commodities. I still think Qatar Airways is primed for implosion but understand if others feel differently.

@Dennis : “The world has overreacted”

Have you seen footage from
Italy or Spain? It’s a disaster.
What do you mean by overreaction?

@Jenna
Visit the Travel Voucher webpage and scroll further down. You will find the following section:

Refund or Travel voucher:

Please select one of the options below:
I want to request a Travel voucher for future travel. (Please allow us 7 days for us to send this to you.)

I want to request a refund. (Due to the current situation relating to COVID-19 we are experiencing severe delays in processing times. We thank you for your understanding.)

If in doubt call customer service, you may have to wait (I was 90 min on the line). Though they are inundated with calls they have been really helpful.

"China took drastic measures from the onset"

China screwing up is the reason why we are in the situation we are now.

Please beware the CCP is spending literally billions on propaganda. If China hadn't arrested doctors who blew the whistle on this crisis (brought on by abhorrent hygiene standards in China's wet markets), we wouldn't have this devastating pandemic.

China, and only China, caused this mess. We will overcome this disaster; then we must rebuild a world economy that isn't reliant on this lying, genocidal, regime.

That’s what happens when you put all your eggs in one basket. Etihad and Qatar have small aircraft that they can use and tweak destinations. EK’s smallest aircraft is 777-200LR

My flight ek371 phnom penh to Dubai suspended then ek17 to manchester still confirmed ..should I make my own way to dubai .Phnom penh to bkk then into dubai with thai airways

@ Aaron

China did not screw up, they contained it, at great cost.
Obviously you are not an epidemiologist, nor a reader of informated press.

You may be a cheerleader of Elon Musk or that other smart guy, but for a virus that originated in Wuhan, there was no reason for it to cross Eurasia, the Pacific, and the Atlantic for that matter.

Ergo, the EU screwed up, and so have the US currently - biggly. Both will have greater figures than China.

Conversely, China´s trade neighbour Russia has kept figures low : closed their borders to China and restricted travel a month ago. World travel should have been banned 6 weeks ago, which is what happening now anyway but at a much greater cost.

having a fleet of all A380s and 777s is the position no airline wants to be in given the current situation. No airline can afford to operate these aircraft when u have “10 passengers“ on each flight

@Dennis

Have you seen the videos of hospitals in Northern Italy where deaths are approaching 1,000 a day? You're an idiot.

China did take drastic measure, but that is after covering up the contagion for weeks. When the world finally learned the true nature of the virus, it already spread to outside of China. Also, we need to put things in prospective. China went through SARS while the rest of the world, for the most part, did not. (And btw, SARS also came from China.)

Emirates mostly relied on international connections, and with governments discouraging international travels, it's basically cutting the demand for Emirates to almost nothing. With their fleet comprised of big widebody jets (A380 and B777), it makes perfect sense to just shutdown for a a few weeks.

They are not laying off...
Thats the last thing they can afford. Emirates imports all of its crew members. If they lay off people.. Those will likely not come back. Meaning, they would have to go around the world and recruit, training etc etc.

@ ONEWORLD
You might be unaware of the Chinese markets set up in many parts of Italy. The city of Naples (not hit as hard) also has these but there are many all over. These are teeming with Chinese that, in all probability, have colleagues travelling back and forth to Chine, A. Lot.

Playing the blame game now is unproductive and, in my opinion, dangerous.

is flight from istanbul to dubai on 21st of May cancelled?

To those saying that I'm an "idiot", just one example that the world ignores is malaria. According to WHO, half a million people - many of them children - die and 200,000,000 are infected each year. But of course that's an "African problem" and is thus ignored. Not to mention victims of other diseases and things like vehicle accidents. But we don't stop the planet for any of these.
Of course I sympathise with the victims and families, but what I'm worried about is the millions of people that will lose their job, or are otherwise scared, fueling unrest and who knows - perhaps an increase in people taking their own life. This side-affect will affect WAY more people than the virus ever will.

More proof coming up that US and Italy had cases before the outbreak in Wuhan. Too early for the Blame game, it may backfire.

@Dennis The completely different outcomes in Italy and South Korea which were on a similar trajectory early on show the foolishness of thinking that government action makes no difference. The head in the sand approach taken by laypeople who have apparently decided that it’s all a media driven beat-up or hoax and that they are self-styled epidemiologists who know more than actual health professionals or the WHO is dangerous and disgraceful.

Dennis I hope your not qf platinum as the first racist comment edge close to his/her comments?

@Dennis Please stop talking. Is malaria contagious? Do car accidents spread via air travel? You are embarrassing yourself.

@Dennis

I actually think you have a valid point, but I think we have gone beyond that it becomes a mute point. I'd say that initially, the death rate was quite high in China, reportedly, that worried the experts. I believe the last time I checked, the death rate in the US is less than 2%. Did we overreacting? Maybe.

@Andrew

I agree the blame game is dangerous. But once somebody started to blame others, such as China blaming the US for no reason, one has to respond; otherwise, the communist propaganda machines will go wild. They are great at repeating falsehood until people start to believe them.

I saw a few ticketing questions. Contact the airline is the best course of action. You never know what they're going to change/cancel next. They have the responsibility to work with the affected customers on their cancellation of flights. It's time like this that the great airlines distinguished themselves from the bad ones.

That explains the lounge closures, we flew Emirates yesterday in C (very expensive tix purchased 25 hours before departure) BLR-DXB-AMS, and were really surprised upon arrival in DXB to find that ALL Emirates lounges were closed indefinitely with very poor communication and no alternative (for example vouchers) being offered, it seemed odd that they closed all of them (& not left at least one C & F open) from a safety for coworker perspective the risk is similar to their cabin crews, from a customer perspective the lounges would have been a sanctuary away from the very crowded terminals, there were people everywhere, other lounges and all restaurants in the terminals were still open, i have a photo of all the premium passengers corralled at the gate literally with no space for quite some time waiting to board.

I realise in the light of ongoing events one cannot complain, we are super grateful to have gotten home, however having that space onboard in these times and in the lounges at the airports was one of our motivators for parting with a large chunk of cash. We thought it was a bit poor of Emirates to abandon their premium passengers like that, but I can see now that this perhaps was in preparation for the closure.

On a side note we spoke with some of the staff onboard, who informed that they were not loosing their jobs (at this stage at least), unlike with other airlines and had been told to stay put in their accommodation until end of April, and requested not to go ‘home’ as to avoid being quarantined when they would start working again.

Interesting and sad times, now and ahead.

A question, we also have flights for the same route with Qatar on Tuesday also in C, now cancelled, we cannot get through to them, if we cancel online we loose about €600, we are considering doing a charge back through MasterCard, has anyone any experience with this?

@Last Call

Remember where H1N1 and so-called "spanish flu" originated? Moron.

@G But it’s okay for rabble rousing US politicians to single out China to blame, I suppose. Just like they’ve blamed the media, Democrats, liberals and millennials.

If you’re a large airline with significant (or all in the case of Emirates) international operations, you’re going to need to park most, if not all your planes and wait for restrictions to be lifted in demand to be restored. Period. Considering the cost structure of the equipment/planes these airlines use it’s going to be rough for a while. Since it unlikely that demand snaps back like a bungie cord, things will be slow and different on the other side.

Even if the virus situation improves very soon by a lot (unlikely!), governments will not ease travel restrictions quickly. And even if they did, people may be less willing to travel for a long time.

Based on only large aircraft and foreign crews, Emirates may have the worst business model for the new world.

I'm sorry for your loss, lucky

@Lucky
Latest from CNBC!

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/emirates-airline-to-suspend-all-passenger-operations-by-march-25.html

“Emirates would like to clarify that while it will suspend the majority of its flights by 25 March, the airline will continue to operate passenger and cargo flights to countries as long as borders remain open, and there is demand,” the company said in a statement Sunday.

“This currently includes destinations in: the UK, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Bangkok, Malaysia, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Australia, South Africa, USA, and Canada. The situation remains dynamic, and travellers can check flight status on emirates.com.“

Emirates Group said in a statement Sunday that it will not cut jobs, but will implement a temporary reduction in basic salary for the majority of its employees for three months, ranging from 25% to 50%. Emirates is the world’s largest A380 operator, and top-five largest airline in terms of passenger and freight ton kilometers flown.

“As a global network airline, we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot viably operate passenger services until countries re-open their borders, and travel confidence returns,” Emirates Group chairman and CEO Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum

@yourcommiedadddd

So your evidence is a Canadian article that is full of Chinese references, including links right back to the Chinese propaganda. Really?

@James N - Go back to 8chan. Can rant and rave about the “Liberal Hoax” as much as you want over there and be among your own low information kind.

@James N
Yes, it’s quite literally unbelievable, unless you’re a conspiracy-addled far right troglodyte. There’s quite a bit of that about apparently.

Yes, it's okay to single out China for blame. No China, no covid-19. Just so we all have the same baseline.

@Matt Fortini Should we single out the USA for swine flu?

@Lucky the story had changed.. all extremely dynamic

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/22/emirates-airline-to-suspend-all-passenger-operations-by-march-25.html

Dubai-based Emirates Airline has stepped back from its initial move Sunday to suspend all passenger flights due to the coronavirus crisis after facing pressure from governments.

Instead, it will temporarily suspend “most” passenger flights by March 25 , with flights still operating to several destinations based on demand and border accessibility.

“Having receiving requests from governments and customers to support the repatriation of travellers, Emirates will continue to operate passenger and cargo flights to the following countries until further notice, as long as borders remain open, and there is demand: the UK, Switzerland, Hong Kong, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Japan, Singapore, Australia, South Africa, USA, and Canada,” a company statement said Sunday.

“The situation remains dynamic, and travellers can check flight status on emirates.com.”

The company added South Korea to that list shortly after issuing the statement.

Anyone who thinks after all this we’ll stop all manufacturing in China is stupid as fkc. Idgaf who you are or where you are in this country, 80% of everything in your house was manufactured in China.

I guess with all these Americans losing jobs maybe you patriot idiots can suggest they take the $1 a day their paying Chinese labors to make that stuff.

This Virus is a real problem. It’s a slow moving problem for us Americans who can’t digest long term. You dumb people who think it’s a hoax. Thats fine. Keep thinking that. And when your relatives can’t get a bed in a hospital for whatever reason in 6 months I’ll laugh at your stupidity.

This virus is a culling of the old, unhealthy, and sick. It’s a slow process but we’re already 2/3 the way to the total deaths of H1N1 and that infected 60 million worldwide. We’re at just over 300k cases. You do the math on how many people will end up dead IF NOT because of the virus, because they can’t get the medical attention or supplies needed when they have a real life emergency.

If this isn’t a wake up to you all to eat healthy, work on your cardio, and pay attention to your health problems idk what is.

I think they have re-tracted their comment. Please check !

@Dennis: looks like you have lost your common sense.

Lots of Russian trolls here.

Lucky, get off your ass, put some effort into ensuring your comment section is not doing the work of Vladimir Putin - or don't complain when you are forced to live in his world.

Booked to return to Dublin on 6am flight from Sydney via Dubai. Is this still operating? If I get to Dubai is flight to Dublin still operating of do I have to try to get to zUK and then onwards?

Its dreadful the way the US released this chemical weapons type plague on the world and tried to blame China. Orange Don looks a bit sick, hopefully he's caught a dose

That's interesting as every time I check out the map of flights still coming in and out of Australia, Emirates seems to be right up there as do some of the China airlines and even Air India. Based on the govt messaging here, it actually came as a surprise! Lets hope this shut down doesn't take out too many airlines, don't want to be marooned even in beautiful Australia forever!!
Stay safe OMAT community and team!

Emirates is ridiculous. Although they have indefinitely suspended service to my origin city (weeks before this latest round of cancellation), they are only offering a voucher. How the hell am I going to use that? Their useless Twitter account is ignoring my DMs; I gave up holding for customer service after 90 minutes. I will go to their local office today and demand a refund. Otherwise, I guess I'll just have to open an Amex Dispute.

@yourcommiedadddd

The website you posted, Global Research Canada, is an infamous conspiracy theory website that is best known for promoting the thoroughly debunked theory that 9/11 was a CIA false flag attack. It is run by the discredited Michel Chossudovsky. In the past he has been linked to multiple Russian-backed propaganda campaigns.

Ben and Tiffany, you have a responsibility to remove this sort of content from the comments.

Hi guys, my wife has an Emirates flight booked at the begining of April from Bali via KL onto London Heathrow. I have been on the phone to Emirates 3 times today trying to get a handle on whats going on. Unfortunately received 3 different answers. I think the confusing messages put out by the company today have not been explained to their staff. I call then again in 12 hours and hopefully get an answer. I'll post any facts that I get

Dennis - I didn't think you were an idiot, but now I do! You compare to malaria!? Jesus Christ - you'd really struggle to get much more ignorant than that.

Dennis you are wasting your breath on the rest of these PC, narrow minded individuals who do not want to blame the source (China) and who are unable to look at the BIG picture, namely all of the long term side affects that will occur due to shutting the world down. The fact that many people will die from COVID 19 related matters means nothing to others. I recently returned from a 3rd world country and had numerous individuals tell me that they had no idea how they were going to buy food and support their family’s after being let go from their jobs with NO compensation.

@ BrewerSEA -- Appreciate the heads up! We're trying to keep up with all the comments and take down anything not evidence-based, but...it's a lot.

Any person who has managed to return home very recently is blessed and gratitude to their carrier is due.
I am stranded in Delhi until the Indian travel ban lifts.Thanks to Metropolis Tourist home for their hospitality and safe refuge at present.
I hold an Emirates ticket,presently cancelled,to Newcastle UK, and am working to access their site to obtain a travel voucher.Thanks to them in anticipation of my eventual return home.Thanks to them for continuing to serve.
Covid 19 is a terrible wake up call to our wonderful planet and its occupants.

Now UAE said they will stop ALL INBOUND AND OUTBOUND flights. Emirates will entirely shut down (at the same time, Etihad will also shut down)

This message is now invalid.

I agree with Dennis, MSM have unnecessarily caused mass hysteria here.

Yes, one should be concerned about this virus, and take the necessary precautions (most of which people should've been doing anyway). Shutting down the world economy is indeed an overreaction, playing right into the hands of the super rich.

But who am I, just a troglodyte layperson who must believe unconditionally some of the geniuses in this thread, apparently...

Lucky, I'm speechless too. More EK knocking from you. When will it end?

Take a look at what Emirates have actually done. (Note BA CEO takes no pay cut, willy walsh takes only 20%)

"....... we chose to implement a temporary basic salary cut ....... protect our workforce and keep our talented and skilled people, When demand picks up again, .... quickly .....resume services for our customers.” AND

A temporary reduction of basic salary .......for three months, ranging from 25% to 50%. Employees will continue to be paid their other allowances. Junior level employees ....exempt....
Presidents of Emirates and dnata – Sir Tim Clark and Gary Chapman – will take a 100% basic salary cut for three months

If "Staff allowances" refer to accommodation, then this is even more responsible planning.

And then AA stop crew wearing masks? (Worn by staff who have been in contact with many people, so think hard. FOR THEIR PROTECTION OR THE PROTECTION OF OTHERS?

And all you can worry about is not being able to shower on board any more....
"£$%$£"^&!!!

If you can joke, then I will too. Such a pity in all this that I didn't have the chance to fly on a 380 with more crew than passengers!

Comparing this with malaria or cancer or whatever disease you choose is like comparing apples and oranges. If cancer or malaria was spread by airline travel, then I think you would see a similar shutdown... This disease clearly doesn't kill everybody, but in a very short period of time, it kills 2-3% of those infected. So, without any mechanism to stop it such as anti virals or a vaccination, you could see potentially 210 million deaths (world-wide), and that's presuming that the hospitals aren't completely overwhelmed in a very short period of time....where that figure could easily double. And most of these people will be your elderly parents, grandparents and the already medically compromised.

Douglas - The super rich got rich by having a strong economy (why do you think the likes of Trump are so obsessed with the stock market?). While they'll come out the other side in a much better position than the rest of us, who exactly do you think is going to profit do much that they'd happily destroy lives and the economy to do so?

@OneWorld
You’ve been sipping the Beijing Kool Aid. As is “normal” in such events, Beijing failed, miserably, in the early stages of this. I don’t consider lying, delaying, brow-beating, obfuscating to be “doing everything they could to stop it” ( despite the what the quisling toady from WHO says..)
Trump deserves credit for issuing the China travel ban relatively quickly; he warrants opprobrium...in spades...for the embarrassing litany of failures since...
Emirates is completely blameless; it’s an airline, not a public health body.

@Matt Fortini, kudos to you. Well said about China. Although the blame game is never beneficial while this world health tragedy is going on, however, once we get past this virus pandemic and we eventually will as a people, let NO ONE EVER forget where this virus started in humans and the initial cover up by a undemocratic authoritarian regime that China is. The few brave Chinese doctors who were the initial whistle blowers and the brutal Chinese authorities who initially tried unsuccessfully to silence them. Please remember this when the day comes again that we all go crazy buying non stop Chinese exports that all stores are inundated with .

The experts are saying hundreds of millions of people could die with this virus, we need to listen to them and shut everything for a few months. If we are lucky enough to live, we can then think of airlines and flying and what not

John,you are correct in reasoning.
However,personal attitude varies considerably with your situation.
A person with a full freezer ,larder,and pockets in UK is well placed to face the health challenge,however daunting.
Airlines and flying and what not are a luxury in normal times.However,the abrupt cessation of services has left many UK citizens stranded all over the planet.
My Emirates flight to Newcastle was due to leave Delhi tonight,and I would have been fortunate to be on one of their final journeys.India suspended all International flights from Sunday 22nd.
No advice is forthcoming from Transport or Diplomacy.The negotiations ongoing with Peru may be cause for hope.
Very best wishes to Humanity.