It comes as no surprise that United, like Delta a few weeks ago, has chosen to politicise their decision when they redeploy capacity to maximise profit.
Emirates has operated flights between Washington DC (IAD) and Dubai (DXB) since September 2012, and has not added significant capacity on the route since. It is disingenuous for United to blame Emirates for their decision to pull out of the route, more than three years after we began services.
United’s protest against Jetblue and Emirates’ codeshare agreement on the IAD-DXB route is also hypocrisy, since United itself serves dozens of destinations, including with Fly America Act contracts, through codeshare agreements where its partner provides similar services.
Contrary to United’s contentions, Emirates is not a “subsidised government carrier” nor is JetBlue merely a ticketing agent of Emirates. We have comprehensively demonstrated time and again, that Emirates is run on a fully-commercial and profitable basis, and that we have in fact returned over US$3.3 billion in dividends to our owners to date.
JetBlue and Emirates have a comprehensive worldwide two-way code-sharing relationship. Every day, numerous Emirates wide-body aircraft arrive at US gateway airports and unload thousands of travellers, many of whom then continue on to destinations inside and outside the United States on JetBlue aircraft - to points that Emirates does not serve on its own, and which due to its codeshare with JetBlue, Emirates is able to offer. Similarly, many JetBlue passengers fly on Emirates-operated aircraft to destinations that Jetblue does not serve with its own aircraft, such as between the US and Dubai.
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