Pilot shortage compels Emirates to ground planes

 Friday, May 4, 2018 

One of the world’s largest airlines is planning to ground up to 46 aircrafts owing to a worsening pilot shortage.

Tim Clark who is the president of Emirates told the media in April that the company was ‘tad short on pilots’. But then grounding of as many as 46 airplanes suggests that the problem is actually worse than that.

Emirates would be sending 36 Boeing 777’s and 10 A380’s to an airport in Dubai to mainly utilize it as an airplane parking lot that would be costing them around $65 million in lost revenue.

Alex Macheras, an UK-based aviation analyst said that a large number of pilots were leaving the airline owing to long hours and poor working conditions.

The groundings have been taking place at the same time as other airlines including British Airways, Virgin and Air New Zealand who have been eager to find replacement aircraft to cover scheduling issues due to the continuing situation with some of the their Dreamliner engines.

British Airways has plans to lease aircraft from Qatar Airways to deal with their fleet problems of Dreamliner but then at this stage there is no indication that AIR NZ would lease any of the grounded Emirates fleet.

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