Emirates wants United’s bread and butter routes…and it likely will prevail unless United chooses to fiercely compete against the popular Gulf Carrier.
American tried and failed. Delta tried and failed. But United maintains service to both New Delhi and Mumbai from its Newark hub. But that service will be critically tested thanks to Emirates new non-stop service from Newark to Dubai starting on June 01, 2018.
Think about it: the United flights leave Newark late, which is nice, but arrive into India too late for domestic connections. Thus, passengers are trapped in Delhi or Mumbai overnight, a major annoyance for those connecting to smaller cities within India.
Enter Emirates, which offers one-stop service to most major cities in India via its Dubai hub, all with nicely timed connections. Throw in a higher standard of service onboard (better meals, service, IFE) and United will struggle to compete.
Emirates will specifically time its new Dubai flight to maximize connections to anywhere in Africa, Asia (or even backtracking to Europe).
EK224 departs Newark at 1150am / arrives Dubai at 0820am+1
EK223 departs Dubai at 0300am / arrives Newark at 0900am
But Emirates specific target is India, which it makes clear in its press release—
Emirates’ non-stop service to Newark will offer travellers in northern New Jersey enhanced global connectivity, particularly those heading to Africa, the Far East, and the Indian sub-continent. This is a boon for ethnic communities such as the nearly 700,000 Indian Americans residing in the greater New York area, who will have one-stop access to nine Indian cities on Emirates’ global network.
Translation: you better watch out United and Air India, because there’s a new sheriff in town.
United Can Fight and Win
But United does not have to cede India to Emirates, like it did Dubai and Kuwait.
First, United is in a difficult position. If it moves its departure from New York earlier to maximize same-day connections in Delhi and Mumbai, it will lose its competitive advantage of allowing someone to work the full day in New York before traveling.
But what if it moved either Mumbai or Delhi a bit earlier? Just a couple hours. That way a person could still work till 3pm in Manhattan, take the United flight to India at 6pm, and still connect same-day to any other city in India.
United may also want to consider a 777-300ER on its Indian routes. Emirates has a bling first class and is known for quality, but its business class is actually 2-3-2. Furthermore, not every aircraft is even equipped with horizontal lie-flat beds in business class! United should make this very clear in an ad campaign, noting that its seats are always truly lie-flat. If a 777-300ER is used, it can proclaim direct aisle access from every seat in a 1-2-1 configuration. That’s quite a contrast!
For business travelers just looking to maximize sleep, United — with better seats and better bedding — can compete with Emirates.
Finally, United has a huge advantage in that Newark is a fortress hub and it can offer easy domestic connections to/from hundreds of cities around the USA. While Emirates partners with JetBlue at JFK, it will be targeting local traffic in Newark.
CONCLUSION
The new route may seem like bad news for United, but it does not have to be. Instead, if United can rise to the challenge while getting the message out about what it does right (better business class seat, more legroom in EconomyPlus, easy connections) it can still compete against Emirates.
EK223 departs Dubai at 0300am, that is not a great departure time.
Not ideal, but that allows passengers to leave any city in India in the evening then connect quickly to Newark.
I actually find Air Canada has some amazing business class fares from USA to India with a connection in Toronto. Plus Air Canada has truly lie-flat seats.
it’s the same old dribble pontificating about the same issue with the ME3 versus the legacy US metal. Look United can hardly get out of it’s own way when it comes to it’s own in the US let along internationally the same goes for AA and DL. Although the new management has made some real improvements to DL internationally.
Unless there is no other option at a certain moment in time I have avoided US metal for the past 15 years internationally. You can say what you want ME3 has a great product which I have flown both with points AND paying for it either First or Biz. Just returned from a r/t BA from SJC to LHR on their new 787-9 nice plane.
As far as departure times one can fly the legacy three and get lousy service/cabins or adjust your schedule and take something you’ll enjoy, HMM not much thought needed there.
I think this issue has been blogged to death, maybe we should leave it there.
Have you flown EK in Y like most passengers heading to the subcontinent, though? Hate to break it to you, but EK’s marketing fluff aside, their coach product is equally mediocre to UA. A middle seat in their 10-abreast 77W is just as bad as one on UA, with the same indifferent service to boot.
Actually I have from DXB to JNB we could only get one seat up front so my wife and I took turns back in coach. crammed in, yes, but I think the service was not that bad, seating was tight for me being 6.2 and lanky was better for my wife, the IFE was still a good time killer. So nothing to “break” to me
I am surprised that none of the “3” have added a premium coach as was rumored. AF has an excellent premium coach product. And when my business travel days are over most likely we will continue to fly using premium coach.
While the product itself may be as good or bad as United, the service is way better. For us value conscious Indians doing some duty free in Dubai is also a factor.
It seems that UA’s main strategy when faced with foreign competition on routes is to fall back rather than competing.
The market is NYC and there have been 3 Gulf carriers options for years.
The breathless “will they compete” by flyertalkers is code for “will there be freebies / ego candy” for avgeeks who like to ride premium via loyalty perk or a fare deal.
It’s a great hobby but take it less seriously.
Sorry Greg, but this is a new market that will directly compete against a new airline that holds onto its India routes. The questions are discussion are relevant and valid
The biz travelers ex AMD have long had better options than United (better served via Etihad) to NYC.
All this does is put more capacity up against Etihad, Qatar, and Air India in the non DEL/BOM market to NYC, which is more VFF oriented than the BOM/DEL originating traffic.
UA has little to worry about here. Air India, Etihad, and Qatar are the primary targets.
No ad campaign needed. The UA product to India has sold just fine up against those Gulf carriers without good connections beyond BOM/DEL.
Blingy*
You can’t use bling by itself like that anymore… it has become exclusively a noun and just doesn’t sound right. C’mon, catch up with the times.
The market isn’t NYC. Emirates isn’t just competing with United but also with Air India. Emirates tend to lose on one of the most important connection market i.e. Ahmedabad (Gujarat). What Emirates failed to mention is that out of those 700,000 Indian Americans majority of them are Gujaratis. And Yet Emirates flight isn’t nowhere close to ideal connection time for Ahmedabad. Whereas Air India offers 3x weekly flights to Newark via London and also daily flights via Mumbai in addition to daily flights on United via Delhi and Mumbai. So Emirates might be tapping Delhi and Mumbai connection but they tend to lose on an important connection of Ahmedabad. In the long run though United needs to up their game in the Indian market considering Delta may be making a move soon through their growing partnership with Jet Airways.
Whats so bad about the connection time from AMD?
“United may also want to consider a 777-300ER on its Indian routes.”
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United’s current plane (sCO 772) is already better in J with 2-2-2, and the Polaris bedding to boot. It’s also better in Y with 9 across (though that won’t last).
A 77W maybe, but perhaps in a year to 18 months time a Polaris fitted 772 with Premium Plus? Polaris will trump EK and P+ will trump the nothing that EK could offer for the mid range comfort flier.
Moving the flight 2-3 hours earlier works for me. I fly PDX-EWR-BOM and my 6 hour layover at EWR gets cut to 3. Even though my destination is BLR and sometimes HYD I’d probably still overnight at BOM at sensible o’clock and continue next morning.
However, if United launched a non stop to BLR from EWR (definitely doable) or SFO (pushing the limits of the 789) that would be a killer against EK.
Some help from Lufthansa (JV partner) in restoring FRA-HYD would also go a long way to countering EK too.