Emirates Airlines Applies to Operate in Colombia

Emirates Airlines has requested permission from Colombian aviation authorities to start flights in Colombia from June this year. Should the approval be granted, the airline plans to connect Bogota with Dubai, including a stopover in Miami, United States. These flights would use Boeing 777-200LR and Boeing 777-300ER planes, accommodating 354 to 440 passengers.

The first public hearing will be held tomorrow Friday, February 16, to analyze a request that would mean Colombia’s first connection with the Middle East. If the Colombian authorities approve the proposal, this would be Emirates’ fourth destination in South America, after Buenos Aires in Argentina and Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Dubai airline destination 134

If the application is approved, this would be the 134th destination for the Dubai airline, which operates 3,400 weekly flights from the Emirate’s airport to its international destinations in nearly 80 countries. The company has experienced significant growth in recent years and has become one of the world’s leading airline operators.

In November 2023, the airline reported the highest financial performance in its history. Its net profit for the first half of the 2023-24 fiscal year reached US$2.7 billion, a 138% increase from its previous record of US$1.2 billion in the last year.

Its proposal to land in Bogota is part of the company’s strategy to expand in South America. Emirates is also studying future operations in countries such as Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay.

With a fleet of more than 250 aircraft, including state-of-the-art Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s, the airline offers connections to destinations on six continents.

Colombia, an attractive market

In recent years, the growth of the Colombian air market has also been significant. According to data from November 2023, air traffic in the country grew by 51% compared to the same month in 2019, before the Covid-19 pandemic.

Thus, between January and November 2023, nearly 17.7 million passengers in Colombia travelled on international flights, which is 29% more than the volume of the same eleven months of 2022.

El Dorado airport in Bogota is the airport with the highest passenger volume in the country. According to Colombian aviation authorities, by the end of 2023, the number of users is expected to reach 40 million, and growth will be even greater in the coming years.

In this regard, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) stated that the El Dorado airport is expected to grow by 47%. In the study conducted, which was based on data from 2019, IATA found 23 areas for improvement that were classified into short, medium and long term actions, according to their level of complexity. If implemented, these recommendations would allow the airport to work with 100 operations per hour, even though the airport worked with 74 operations per hour in 2019, and its current sustainable capacity is 68 per hour.

The city’s international airport is undergoing an expansion of its aircraft parking facilities. This two-year project aims to increase parking capacity by 8%. The expansion is taking place on the southeast side of the north runway, covering an area of 49,000 square meters.