Emirates currently flies from its Dubai hub to four cities in Germany: Frankfurt, Hamburg, Düsseldorf, and Munich. However, as the airline is limited to serving four cities in Germany, further expansion is not possible. This means that if the UAE giant wanted to serve Berlin, it would have to give up another city.

According to Arabian Business, Berlin’s Mayor is keen to see the red, green, and black tail of Emirates gracing his city. However, Emirates has invested significantly in serving other German cities. This is putting the carrier off of potential services to the German capital. The airline remains committed to the four German destinations which it currently serves.

Needs to be attractive

In order for Emirates to ever expand to further within Germany, one of two things needs to happen. The first option is that Germany could grant an exemption to Emirates allowing it to operate to more than four cities within the country.

The more likely option would be that Emirates cuts another German city in order to serve Berlin. However, this is not necessarily very likely. From marketing down to supplying blank boarding passes, Emirates has made a significant investment in each of its current German destinations. In order to move away from one, there would need to be a much better offer elsewhere.

Incentives for Emirates

At a roundtable briefing attended by Simple Flying, Emirates' CEO Sheikh Ahmed told how Berlin would need to offer the carrier incentives to launch flights to the city. Sheikh Ahmed said: "We have invested a lot in those four points". In fact, Hamburg is only a couple of hours from Berlin by train. Sheikh Ahmed went on to add:

"If you want me to go to somewhere, I should be given an incentive why to fly to an airport. In many countries they do, they want you to fly there, they will give you an incentive... It is more for the Germans and Berlin that they should push their own government to agree to something like that."

Emirates has, of course, also experienced trouble launching routes to other destinations across the globe. The airline has now received permission from the Mexican government to launch services to Mexico City from Barcelona, however, only after a fairly long uphill battle. A Mexican court had previously ruled against Emirates launching the service. Sheikh Ahmed says that the carrier experiences similar troubles launching routes across the globe, however, when pressed, refused to name any specific countries.

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