On September 1, 2025, Emirates, the world’s ‘largest international airline’, marked the silver jubilee of its air hyperlink with Chennai. What started on September 1, 2000, as an Airbus A310-300 174-seat service — 4 flights a week and the provider’s third vacation spot in India — has now expanded to a three flights a day, all-Boeing 777-300ER 400-plus seat service (presently, 21 flights a week). In October 1985, the airline launched its flights from Dubai to New Delhi and Mumbai, the basis of its preliminary route community. It now flies to six extra locations —Ahmedabad, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kochi and Thiruvananthapuram. In an unique e-mail interview with The Hindu, Mohammad Sarhan, Vice-President – India and Nepal, Emirates, mentioned the airline continues to help Chennai’s increasing role in commerce, know-how, manufacturing and enterprise by providing the metropolis’s travellers, seamless global connections via its hub in Dubai, and entry to new markets. Mr. Sarhan mentioned the airline remained hopeful that a overview of the present bilateral air providers settlement with India would enable the airline to higher meet rising travel and cargo demand.
What are the milestones in the airline’s operations to Chennai? This can be a journey that may have run in parallel with the growth of the metropolis and its airport infrastructure.
Emirates celebrates 25 years of operations to Chennai this September, a journey that started on 1 September, 2000 and has developed alongside the metropolis’s rise as a main metropolitan hub of India. Over the years, demand for worldwide connectivity from Chennai has grown steadily, pushed by the metropolis’s increasing role in commerce, know-how, manufacturing and enterprise. We have supported this development by providing seamless global connections, enabling companies to entry new markets and offering travellers extra alternative and comfort.
As the metropolis’s airport infrastructure developed and passenger expectations developed, we have been ready to present premium and luxurious travel choices to the metropolis’s travellers. Our steady funding in enhancing services has helped us retain buyer loyalty in this aggressive market. This dedication additionally ensured that we proceed to play a significant role in Chennai’s development story, connecting the metropolis to the world with consistency and care.
Despite the rising demand for worldwide travel throughout India, and our capability to meet it, plans to increase providers to new cities and airports stay on maintain. Unlocking this potential would require coverage help, particularly via a revision of the bilateral air providers settlement cap between India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
What are the developments/information in passenger motion from the metropolis? In this context, how does Chennai fare in comparability to the different ‘competitor airports’ in the southern area resembling Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Kochi? Has the development of Bengaluru airport and its “better infrastructure” been a issue, particularly as it’s the solely southern airport to have common Airbus A380 operations?
Since launching providers in September 2000, Emirates has carried over 10.7 million passengers between Dubai and Chennai on greater than 38,000 flights in each instructions. This highlights the metropolis’s sturdy and resilient demand for worldwide connectivity. Key outbound locations from Chennai are San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Dallas, Boston, Seattle, Paris, London, Manchester, and Frankfurt. Emirates additionally helps sturdy inbound flows into Chennai from the identical key markets, in addition to Kuwait, underscoring its role as a bridge for travel, commerce, and cultural alternate.
Chennai continues to be an necessary market in southern India, supported by a wholesome mixture of enterprise travellers, leisure seekers and vital go to buddies and kinfolk (VFR) phase. While Bengaluru and Hyderabad have grown quickly with newer infrastructure and added capability, together with Airbus A380 operations in Bengaluru, Chennai has retained its energy with a massive outbound base, strong commerce exercise and a rising desire for premium travel. Emirates stays intently aligned with these wants, making certain constant connectivity and repair for patrons in the metropolis.
What is the information in the context of regional commerce, tourism, and financial development?
Emirates continues to play a vital role in strengthening Chennai’s position on the global travel map. Through our in depth worldwide community, we not solely convey vacationers from throughout the world to the metropolis but additionally contribute meaningfully to the native financial system by supporting hospitality, retail, and associated industries. In addition, Emirates SkyCargo, our devoted air freight division, serves as a essential enabler for Tamil Nadu’s companies and farmers by offering them entry to worldwide markets. In the final monetary 12 months, Emirates SkyCargo uplifted 19,300 tonnes of cargo from Chennai, consisting of contemporary fruit and greens, prescription drugs and common cargo. From facilitating the export of perishable items and agricultural produce to enabling native enterprises to attain new clients worldwide, we assist drive commerce, help livelihoods, and foster financial development for the area.
What is the strategic significance of the Chennai-Dubai route and the passenger demography like? It can be a station that has price range provider motion. How a lot of a issue has this been? The airline can be the sole widebody operator on this route.
The Chennai-Dubai route is strategically vital for Emirates because it acts as a key gateway linking South India to our global community. The passenger combine is numerous, starting from enterprise travellers and professionals working in the Middle East to leisure passengers and vacationers connecting to long-haul locations in North America and Europe. While Chennai is served with a variety of low price carriers, their providers are largely centered on point-to-point travel. Emirates distinguishes itself by being the sole widebody operator on this route, providing higher consolation, cargo capability, and, most significantly, seamless one-stop connectivity to cities throughout the United States, Europe, and past, via its hub in Dubai This mixture of scale, service high quality, and global attain makes our presence in Chennai uniquely useful for each passengers and the native financial system.
There has been a constant demand made by the UAE for a liberal air providers settlement. What are your views?
We recognise a sturdy and rising demand for air connectivity between India and the UAE, reflecting the deep financial, cultural, and people-to-people ties between the two international locations. Emirates has at all times been dedicated to supporting this development by providing world-class connectivity and enhancing commerce and tourism hyperlinks. We stay hopeful that a overview of the present bilateral air providers settlement between each international locations will enable us to higher meet the rising demand, benefiting travellers, companies, and the wider economies of each nations.
What has the airline accomplished in phrases of buyer expertise, airport partnerships, and in addition service improvements? What about airline partnerships?
Emirates continues to elevate the end-to-end journey with refreshed cabins, an expanded ice (‘information, connectivity, and entertainment’) leisure platform, intuitive digital touchpoints, and accessibility initiatives, alongside operational enhancements that shorten connections and strengthen on-time efficiency. Recent First Class upgrades embody a memento menu that showcases the provenance of unique wines with tasting profiles and pairings, elegant, engraved caviar serviceware by Robert Welch, and the newly unveiled ‘Emirates First’ check-in at Dubai T3 providing a refined, non-public, lounge-like arrival. As the world’s largest operator of worldwide First Class, the expertise contains non-public suites, Dom Pérignon, Bulgari amenity kits and Byredo skincare, lie-flat beds, Hydra Active pyjamas, Bowers and Wilkins headphones with award-winning leisure, the A380 Shower Spa and Onboard Lounge, plus chauffeur-drive, white-glove eating, and entry to 43 luxurious lounges.
Business class enhancements complement this with absolutely lie-flat seats, aisle entry at each seat on the Airbus A380, gourmand multi-course eating with wine pairings, precedence airport providers, and entry to premium lounges — backed by meal pre-ordering and touches resembling high-quality bedding and noise-reducing headsets. To replicate Chennai’s numerous clientele, regionally-inspired menus embody genuine Tamil delicacies. Service improvements span Artificial Intelligence-enabled operational analytics, smarter disruption restoration, and streamlined check-in and doc verification, enhancing reliability whereas sustaining excessive security and repair requirements.
On partnerships, we have now deepened industrial cooperation throughout codeshare and interline agreements to prolong one-ticket connectivity and aligned baggage insurance policies into secondary and leisure markets, complemented by a strong joint community with regional companions. We have constructed certainly one of the trade’s most in depth partnership networks, with codeshare and interline agreements with numerous airways and travel companions globally, together with with carriers resembling United, Air Canada, Qantas (Australia) and Korean Air.
Global connectivity from Chennai is a main issue, and in this, direct connectivity is essential. There can be a transfer to reclaim ‘hub traffic’ from the UAE/Dubai again to India to funnel this via Delhi, Mumbai and even Bengaluru on an India-based fleet of latest wide-body long-range plane, the reference being to Air India and Indigo and their fleet plans). How is the airline managing this? It can be competing with the different ‘Middle Eastern heavyweights’, specifically Etihad, Qatar Airways, and now Riyadh Air, and their hub plans.
Emirates addresses this evolving panorama by prioritising what issues most to travellers from Chennai: dependable one-stop global attain by way of Dubai, broad schedules, and a constantly superior widebody expertise connecting to long-haul locations throughout North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. Our in depth community and partnerships allow seamless end-to-end journeys, whereas continued funding in facilities, community breadth, on-time efficiency, and powerful security requirements sustains rising desire for our providers. Together with Dubai’s prominence as a industrial and tourism hub, these strengths underpin our strategy to competitors and guarantee resilient connectivity for Chennai.
What are the developments in cargo motion from the metropolis? Pharma and digital items actions are necessary. The cargo hubs in Dubai have additionally been developed with the idea of a fast turnaround time. There can be a pretty sturdy motion of different cargo carriers that embody the Chinese airways.
Since inception, Emirates SkyCargo has been a facilitator for global commerce. To and from Chennai, we function 21 flights per week, enabling us to transfer cargo in the bellies of our passenger plane, and transport it to over 145 locations worldwide, by way of Dubai. In the final monetary 12 months, we uplifted 19,300 tonnes of cargo from Chennai, consisting principally of contemporary fruit and greens, prescription drugs and common cargo; conversely, we imported 16,400-plus tonnes of predominately common cargo and blended foodstuffs.
The airline has seen an expansive retrofit programme which has led to the recycling/upcycling of plane materials. One such programme was the donation of faculty baggage in north India. Are there any such plans for Chennai or Tamil Nadu?
In Noida, earlier this 12 months, we donated 400 limited-edition backpacks to underprivileged schoolchildren via the Smile Foundation. These baggage have been handcrafted by Emirates Engineering utilizing upcycled supplies from retrofitted Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 plane. The airline additionally offered faculty stationery and fundamental hygiene provides and distributed them as a part of the airline’s wider sustainability and group initiatives.
The “Emirates Aircrafted KIDS” programme has already reached faculties in a number of international locations throughout the Middle East, Africa and Asia, together with India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. It was lately expanded to Egypt and 800 baggage have been distributed up to August 1, 2025.
In Chennai, our dedication to the local people is mirrored via the Emirates Airline Foundation’s partnership with the Community Health Education Society (CHES). Together, they established the Emirates-CHES Home, which gives a protected and safe atmosphere for over 100 destitute kids, together with HIV-positive kids deserted in the metropolis. The dwelling ensures they obtain the care, medical help, and dignity that they deserve.
What are the steps the airline has taken in the context of tackling the wildlife commerce? Has there been any influence as there are circumstances of wildlife smuggling seizures at Chennai airport?
Emirates takes a sturdy stance in opposition to the unlawful wildlife commerce and has put in place strong measures throughout its global community. The airline enforces strict screening protocols, equips frontline workers with specialised coaching, and maintains a zero-tolerance coverage on transporting banned species or looking trophies. In 2023, Emirates grew to become certainly one of the few airways to earn the IEnvA Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT) module certification, endorsed by United for Wildlife.
On the floor, dnata [Dubai National Air Travel Agency, a global air and travel services provider] colleagues are skilled in the International Air Transport Association’s Live Animal Regulations and Emirates’ inner insurance policies, whereas a devoted reporting channel empowers staff and companions to confidentially flag suspicious exercise. Emirates additionally performs an lively role in the United for Wildlife Transport Taskforce, strengthening trade collaboration in opposition to trafficking.