Aviation: Emirates is not flying to Berlin for the time being

The Dubai airline will not use the additional traffic rights for Berlin Airport. There are probably questions about how exactly the agreement should be understood.

Frankfurt. Emirates, the state-owned airline from Dubai, will not initially fly to Berlin as its fifth airport in Germany. “We will not be flying to Berlin at the moment,” said Tim Clark, CEO of the Dubai-based airline, on Wednesday afternoon at the “World Routes 2026” aviation conference in Frankfurt.

The federal government granted airlines from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) additional traffic rights in September. Emirates has been pushing for several years to be allowed to fly to more airports than before. The rights necessary for this are negotiated between the respective states.

Clark referred to the agreement between the UAE and Germany. Obviously this is interpreted differently on both sides. “We have to make sure that the spirit and the way it was translated was correct,” the Emirates boss said. Only when there is clarity here will we head for Berlin.

Emirates is currently allowed to land and take off at four airports in Germany. However, as often as the company wants. Clark also wanted to include Berlin and Stuttgart in the flight plan.

German aviation associations, airlines such as Lufthansa and Condor, but also trade unions opposed this. They fear the loss of German jobs because connecting traffic could be shifted away from German airports and towards the hub in Dubai.

According to the new regulation, a UAE airline is allowed to offer seven connections per week, i.e. one per day, at an additional airport in Germany. It doesn't have to be Emirates; Etihad or Flydubai, for example, can also use the regulation. Both companies are also based in the UAE.

But it was assumed in the industry and also in government circles that Emirates would use the rights - for the German capital's airport.

However, there are requirements. If Emirates were to head to Berlin as its fifth airport, it would not be likely to increase the number of flights at any of the other locations in Germany. Specifically, the airline would be unable to offer a third connection per day to Dubai in Munich, as it has done in the past.

In addition, it was reported in the industry that the airline that uses the new traffic rights is no longer allowed to fly from German airports to third countries as before. In technical jargon this is called the “fifth freedom”.

It is said in the industry that the wording is not entirely clear, especially at this point. In the past, for example, Emirates flew from Dubai to Hamburg and from there to New York.