Mystery: Why Don't Emirates & FlyDubai Merge?

These are just guesses, but the three things that immediately jump out to me are:

(1) COSTS - while there's savings to be had, as you alluded to, there's also expenses that would be incurred that might not be the same for separate operations: most noticeably labor, but also others. I'd imagine they've run the numbers, and continue to find that it's not worth it.

(2) BRANDING - I take the opposite perspective, in that the branding (for FlyDubai) sorta writes itself... I mean, even if someone's never heard of them until today, it's fairly certain that that person can figure out where they fly to. And as with SQ, I'm guessing EK doesn't want its own reputation for quality/service (whether or not one believes it's deserved) to be diluted by a regional brand that doesn't feature all of its offerings. The likes of flatbeds on newer narrowbodies will help, but won't solve that.

(3) JOBS - lastly, since these are both regional government-owned operations, perhaps being a jobs provider is taken into account? I know the airlines both employ legions of foreign workers, but those are mostly frontline; I'm thinking more along the lines of upper management, which IINM is still primarily Emirati, with a lot of it being familial.

A merger would render quite a few of these positions redundant, but who wants to be the one to tell all the nephews, cousins, etc that they're being let go?

I have flown both airplanes and lived in the region and I have to imagine a large reason they aren’t consolidated is because FlyDubai can serve as a “laborer” airline. Dubai needs the ability to fly the many people who run their city to home and back and perhaps perceive the emirates customers would not want to share a plane with them. Similar to Air India/Air India Express routes between Dubai and India. There’s a lot more social hierarchy in the region, and between the different countries, there is an implicit understanding of this, but nobody is going to make a big public fuss about it since they know how repulsive such things can appear in the western world.

Yes, a lot of duplicate efforts, but I don’t anticipate the status quo will change to keep the reputation of emirates as stellar as possible in the region.

I think there is a middle ground where they can merge but keep separate operations. Maybe rebrand Fly Dubai to "Emirates Express" like wholly owned US airline regional subsidiaries.

Why Don’t Emirates & FlyDubai Merge?
As with anything government, somebody will losing money somewhere.

Because logical decision are not a Gulf thing

Surely Europe is west and Asia is east if you’re starting in Dubai!

Everybody knows Americans are bad at Geography. Not surprising.

I unequivocally agree with AnonEmiratesFan's opinion. Westerners love and rave about UAE because it mimics the west but in a grander and more opulent style. I view it as an unsustainable western decadence. Social-economic status reigns supreme among the six wealthy gulf states. The native born citizens enjoy " cradle to grave" employment, despite the lack of skills necessary to perform a job.

A merger of the two airlines is a dead topic in the confines of EK. Literally none of the senior/mid level management executives are talking about it, even in whispered tones. The chances are so remote at this time that it's not even at the level of idle gossip or rumours. [crickets]

As for that long-running EK/EY merger fluff: Never. Going. To. Happen. As long as there is a Dubai and as long as there is an Abu Dhabi, there will be no merged airline. Arab pride is renowned, and Gulf Arab pride is the most elevated of them all. If you know, then you know.

Sad to say, but it's not like anyone truly gives a crap about that. Same can be said for any large city.

I actually asked that question a while ago in Dubai, when speaking to a pretty senior government person over dinner. He explained (and I have no way to verify it) that while both are owned by the government, the royal family is one of the largest in the world, with many factions, alliances and feuds within it. Emirates is someone's baby, FlyDubai is someone else's way of showing they too can run a business. Not sure that's the definition of healthy competition, but its competition of sorts nonetheless.

Ghaith Al Ghaith, the CEO of Flydubai worked for many years at Emirates in Commercial, including Pricing and Revenue Management. The former CIO, Ramesh Venkat, worked under Ghaith Al Ghaith at EK for decades.

I don’t know anything specific, but I don’t think that’s a coincidence. These airlines are separate for a reason.

Separating the two never made sense to me. I feel like people living in smaller cities that see a FlyDubai 737 instead of an Emirates plane who don’t know better will not realize that FlyDubai is basically the short-haul narrowbody arm of Emirates, and that when they fly FlyDubai, they’re basically flying on an Emirates 737. This sort of harms Emirates’ brand recognition in those markets. Speaking of which, why are Thai Airways and Thai Smile separate? Why not make all of it Thai Airways?

SQ-Silkair is a slightly different situation.

They moved a bunch of Silkair low yield routes to Scoot instead of SQ.
Makes it also easier to upkeep SQ branding and reputation for the limited number of Silkair routes they got.

EK won’t be able to do that in the same way.

Or Emirates Smile

Yeah, but why would they? To me it all kinda makes sense: flydubai is a good “local”, cheaper brand of small planes. Emirates is emirates - global airline of huge planes synonymous with the UAE itself. Serve 2 different purposes and in many ways 2 different markets. I honestly don’t see them gaining anything from the merger. Where they could gain from each other - code-sharing and reciprocity and using the same airport and facilities - they already do.

Why Delta and United don't merge? they are from the same country!

And both publicly traded. Apples to oranges comparison.

This comment is the worst aged comment ever regarding Thailand.

Thai Smile will be merged into Thai Airways the way Silk Air was merged into Singapore Airlines and Cathay Dragon/Dragonair into Cathay Pacific.
https://onemileatatime.com/news/thai-smile-merged-thai-airways/

or Emirates Connection.