- Tim Clark helped set up Emirates in 1985 and has been its president since 2003.
- The airline flies from Dubai to 12 US airports as well as dozens of cities globally.
- Clark says if a business "recognizes and respects" its workers, "they look after you" in return.
Dubai's population has grown about 10-fold since Emirates was founded 40 years ago. Among the airline's founding team was Tim Clark, who has been its president for more than two decades.
At the beginning, the nascent carrier wasn't "taken very seriously," he told Business Insider in a wide-ranging interview last month.
That began to change once competitors and aircraft manufacturers realized Dubai was ideally positioned roughly halfway between Europe and the Middle East — and that Emirates was determined to shake up long-haul aviation.
"We were considered to be lunatics, but we did manage to persuade the powers that be in both Airbus and Boeing that we were deadly serious," Clark says.
As well as aircraft that could fly non-stop from Dubai to the likes of Los Angeles, Sydney and Auckland, he wanted cabins that were closer to private jets.
That led to innovations such as first-class suites with sliding doors in the late 1990s that are now "de rigueur everywhere. And I wish I had a patent on those, but we never did. And now they're in business class as well. So you see our footprints everywhere."
The rise of Emirates as a global aviation force mirrors the rise of Dubai, which Clark calls a "global metropolis." It's become "a great place for doing business" as well as serving the rest of the Middle East and North Africa region, particularly Saudi Arabia.
Its 96 flights a week from 12 US airports to Dubai has also made it easier for Americans to get to destinations such as Zanzibar, Mauritius or the Seychelles. Clark thinks there's a lot more growth to come in North America: "We have only really just started. We now have multiple points there, but there are so many more coming."
Emirates' expansion has been constrained to some degree by the availability of new aircraft. Delivery delays for Boeing's new 777X has prompted the airline to spend $4.5 billion "gutting all the old 777s and retrofitting them," Clark says. To maintain its fleet of about 250 passenger jets "you've got to retrofit," he adds.
It's also upgrading many of its A380s, which it first took delivery of in 2008. Later to the premium economy party than other airlines, it only made its Emirates debut in August 2022.
Business class, however, has always accounted for a considerable part of the double-decker Airbus — even if Clark dislikes the name.
When corporate travel budgets were slashed after the 2008 financial crisis, he says older customers in particular started flying in business "in a manner that we just couldn't believe."
People "want to go and see and enjoy … that's why I remain optimistic that demand will continue at the pace it has, constrained by all these we've talked about in regards to supply."
Emirates consistently ranks as one of the world's best airlines, though last year, rival Middle Eastern carrier Qatar Airways was crowned the world's best airline by Skytrax. Qatar pushed Singapore Airlines into second place, while Emirates ranked third.
One of Emirates' advantages over most competitors is being able to recruit its 23,000 cabin crew from anywhere in the world. "That is part of the essence of our model," as Clark puts it.
He describes Dubai as a "really popular city to be in" for many workers — and doubtless the tax-free salaries, generous bonuses and accommodation offer are part of the attraction for some too.
While its training program is "very, very demanding" and being "refreshed all the time," Clark adds: "We try to think that by delivering a fairly innovative stack of products, which we try to change out regularly, that the kids are actually really interested in what they're doing. And they like what they're doing," he says. "We look after them. We care for their welfare."
Asked about where Boeing lost its way, his advice to CEO Kelly Ortberg is to treat workers better. Clark said that if a company "recognizes and respects" its people, "they look after you. I promise you, they'll be doing much more than you asked them to do, simply because they're so proud of being in a company that looks after them."
Clark has been in the airline business for more than half a century, starting off at British Caledonian in 1972 before moving to Gulf Air in Bahrain for a decade. So why is he still working at the age of 75?
He says he considered stepping down during the pandemic but adds: "I just couldn't leave it. I was determined to get the business back on track and be profitable again, and eventually hand it over to the team of people I'm working with. These guys I've been working with 20 years, some of them.
"Frankly, will the business be successful with this team of people working? Of course it will … so I'll find a balance at some point, but I will go."
The airline posted a pre-tax profit of $2.6 billion for the six months to September, up 2%, on revenues of almost $17 billion, and Clark expects "another very good year" in 2025 but notes: "Anything can happen. Well, airlines are an unpredictable business, aren't they?"
