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Emirates Airlines In the Middle East, Emirates Airlines is one of the market leaders in the air transport industry. It operates about 2,200 flights in a week across the whole world with its main hub in Dubai, UAE (Shaw 67). The company engages in offering commercial air transport services both in the UAE and internationally. This includes cargo, postal and passenger carriage services. Moreover, the company engages in offering retail and wholesale consumer goods, institutional and in-flight catering and hotel operations. Its headquarters is in Dubai where the coordination of all operations including flight takes place. The company was founded following the collapse of the Gulf Air in 1985 (Doganis, The Airline Business in the Twenty-first Century 56). It serves approximately 134 destinations in about 60 countries with a fleet size of 218. The mission of the airline mission is to deliver the best in-flight experience in the world. The values and visions of the company involve a stable and strong leadership team. The company believes in business ethics as the foundation of its success. It cares for both stakeholders and employees, the environment and the society it servers (Doganis, Flying Off Course: The Economics of International Airlines 75). The company plays a major role in shaping the future of the air transport industry. Given the associated dangers of terrorism in the Middle East, the airline airport surveillance and security is high to help curb terrorism and kidnappings. The company strategy focuses on creating a great reputation for the airline to make it the preferred passenger choice (Plunkett 79). To deliver excellent services to their customers, the company trains their staff regularly to meet this demand. Staff training is an integral part of the airline’s strategy. The company realizes that new staff recruitment is vital to its financial operations and time efficiency. Therefore, training employees is one of the major priorities of the company. The global strategy of the company enables it increase flight numbers in its major destinations globally (Doganis, The Airline Business in the Twenty-first Century 98). This makes sure that the airline remains competitive in the market. The company further prides of the state of the art security. It attracts more passengers and investors making the airline more successful compared to other airlines. Emirates Airlines initiated several marketing activities recently. Operational inputs depict the efforts to improve productivity (Kleymann and Seristö 73). These involve market strategies and the company strategy at large. One can see the outputs by the growth in passenger and cargo capacities and profit margins. First, the airline has a strong background support from the owners giving it a good foundation to market itself. In addition, it developed an ‘open skies’ strategy or the free competition that helps the airline to competitively market itself (Shaw 89). An analysis of the external and internal market advantages of the airline illustrates its market effectiveness. Characterized by flexibility, the company runs a unique model of business making it a global leader in long haul flights across the globe. Effective pricing strategy makes sure that passengers pay cheaper air tickets, but enjoy the flights (Meek, Palmer and Parkinson 52). This is a big boost to its competitive advantage. The cost-effective advantage gives passengers the reason to prefer the airline over other competitors. It is necessary to highlight that the long haul flights are profitable owing to the low costs of operation. Further, the company has a large pool of creative managers and advisors (Doganis, Flying Off Course: The Economics of International Airlines 123). They develop and design competitive products and services giving it an edge over competitors. The adoption of technology in the operations of the company offers clients a great experience making them come back. The ‘Open Skies’ also strategy helps the airline compete with other players in the market (Plunkett 82). The UAE government enables the airline to develop liberal market that it runs to sustain and encourage competition. More important, the airline participates in many environmental programs like planting trees and supporting initiatives of global climatic change. Flight operations are the core of Emirates airline. The company operates a mixture of Airbus and Boeing. Department of flight operations manages different facets on the Emirates Group operational side. Nevertheless, its main responsibility is to guarantee efficient, legal, and safe operations. This includes scheduling and training of flight deck crew to make sure they comply with regulatory and licensing requirements. It also involves managing superior operations in a customer-friendly, safe, and efficient environment. Operational staff in the department helps in flight deck recruitment. Technical and navigation section are responsible for surveying new routes and availing all navigation. They perform other important operational information to the crew on flight, to make sure safe ground and air operations. Disseminating, investigating and monitoring all incidents, accidents and other happenings that involve the emirates airline are in the mandate of flight operations. The sections under flight operations department include training of flight operations, training of flight facilities, emirates logistic and network operations and performance of flight operations. Others include support of flight operations. For instance of a passenger flight, a client can purchase his or her ticket from the various accredited agents. He or she has the option of selecting the best flight option among the first class, business class and the economy class. The latter is the cheapest. Flight operations department will offer support to both the crew and the passengers while on ground, on flight and finally when they land. Basically this is to ensure their safe transportation. Other important operations include the emirates sky cargo. The supply chain of Emirates airline comprises of partners, shareholders, investors and business strategic managers and travel agencies. A diagrammatic representation of the supply chain structure is as below:

The airline derives many benefits from the supply chain. The airline is owned by the Dubai government. The head of the airline is Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum. Other investors include companies like sky cargo. Agents are many all over the globe to facilitate easy services of the company. Suppliers such as the agents direct the particular service of the client such as cargo, which then undergoes processing and verification at the organization level. The distributor then gets notified and the cargo is the transported to the destination with the support of the distributor. The main strategy of the company is cost leadership initiative. It combines the inputs of different managers in order to come up with a strong supply chain activity. The supply chain develops strategies that are significant to overcoming business and customer service challenges that can affect its operations (Kleymann and Seristö 98). The supply chain also makes sure that there is comfort during long haul flights. The same strategy is applied in short haul flights within the Middle East region. The supply chain involves strategic managers who make sure that the company gains an edge in the market. This include developing new products, conducting market research and offering better customer services at an affordable cost (Shaw, 102). Partners, investors and shareholders realized the need of empowering these supply chain crucial decisions. This is what makes Emirates Airline a global brand that actively competes in this industry. Strategic managers also help affiliated travel agencies to adopt new technologies that are effective and efficient to client service. It is easy to measure Emirates’ productivity focusing on staff, leadership and the general output of the company (Meek, Palmer and Parkinson 56). The successful implementation of several strategies of the company show the efforts achieved by the staff of the airline. Consequently, the number of passengers continues to rise annually. This leads to an increase in new routes and destinations. Profit margins also increase sharply when the numbers of passengers increase. This can be supported by the diversified business model adopted by the airline that enhances productivity and output (Plunkett 86). The strategy of cheap pricing enables the airline to continue being profitable and sustain long haul flights. The decisions made by the executive management makes the company looks new even after 28 years in operation. Clearly, Emirates Airline remains a productive output based on its financial reporting and customer reviews. The fact that it is one of the few airlines with a predicted positive growth in the next decade shows its great success. Service diversification helps in the growth and productivity of the organization. Many clients prefer a one stop solution, such as the airline providing taxi services. Improving security makes the image of the organization stronger enabling the clients to trust and stick with the organization. Effectiveness and efficiency are also important. The turnaround time of offering goods and services determines the trust people have on the organization. For emirates case, opening new routes to reach many clients is vital.
Works Cited
Doganis, Rigas. Flying Off Course: The Economics of International Airlines. New York: Routledge, 2013. Print.
Doganis, Rigas. The Airline Business in the Twenty-first Century. Boston: Psychology Press, 2001. Print.
Kleymann, Birgit and Hannu Seristö. Managing Strategic Airline Alliances. Farnham: Ashgate, 2004. Print.
Meek, Richard, Roger Palmer and Lynn Parkinson. Managing Marketing Performance. New York: Routledge, 2008. Print.
Plunkett, Jack W. Plunkett's Transportation, Supply Chain & Logistics Industry Almanac 2009. Washington, D.C: Plunkett Research Ltd, 2009. Print.
Shaw, Stephen. Airline Marketing and Management. Surrey: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd, 2012. Print.

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