Pinoys’ revenge travel plans boosting Emirates’ bookings

MANILA, Philippines — Emirates Airlines is optimistic on the Philippines’ travel industry as it hitches a ride on post-pandemic travel growth, boosted by Filipinos’ revenge travel plans.

In an interview with The STAR, Emirates country manager for the Philippines Saeed Miran said the future of Philippine air travel is bright and the airline itself is experiencing extraordinary demand.

The tourism sector is expected to contribute as much as eight percent to the country’s gross domestic product this year from more than six percent last year, as foreign and local tourism continue to grow due to easing of COVID-related restrictions.

“The Philippines is in high demand. Filipinos are eager to go on revenge travel after the pandemic,” Miran said.

Emirates has over 30 years of long-standing relationship with the Philippines. It has been operating services from Dubai to Manila since 1990 and to Cebu and Clark since 2016.

With flights now back to normal after the pandemic, Emirates is once again experiencing high demand on Dubai to Manila services, prompting it to resume its 18 weekly passenger frequencies to Manila within weeks of the COVID restrictions being lifted.

As such, Emirates’ seat occupancy on the Dubai to Manila route is now even higher than before the pandemic, averaging 94 percent for 2023 so far.

Banking on this strong growth, Emirates has also unveiled the Emirates Boeing 777 First Class cabin, which is the first and only airline cabin class of its kind offered on flights to and from Manila, for those who want to experience peak inflight luxury.

“It’s been in demand in the Philippines,” Miran said on the newly unveiled First Class cabin.

In all, Miran said that the Middle Eastern airlines is constantly improving its services from new routes, new cabins to additional entertainment offerings on board.

As of end-July, it has up to 6,500 channels of movies, TV shows, music and games on demand, Emirates said.

These include original documentaries from Bloomberg Originals, content from the Discovery Channel and discovery+, and movies from HBO Max etc.

“We constantly update our ever-expanding list of media titles on our award-winning inflight entertainment system ice, so flyers will always have new titles to immerse themselves in whenever they fly,” the company also said.

More importantly, Miran said the airline has consistently offered access to more than 500 cities around the world, together with its airline partners.

At present, Emirates has more than 29 codeshare, 117 interline and 11 intermodal rail partners in more than 100 countries.

This provides Filipino travelers increased connectivity and access to more than 500 cities around the world, beyond the airline’s own network, the company said.

Emirates also offers more flight options from the Philippines.

“With our interline partnership with Philippine Airlines, Emirates’ passengers have access to a host of domestic points in Philippine Airlines’ network via Manila, Cebu and Clark, providing seamless connectivity while using a single ticket and convenient baggage policy,” the airline said.