Emirates halves Dubai flight-times to Brazil

It was in 1996 that Emirates Airline launched its Australia service with four flights a week. Today there are 60 flights a week from the UAE to Australia and by 2010 there are plans for 126. The number of Australians living in the UAE has tripled to 15,000 in the past five years, and the value of trade between the UAE and Australia has more than quadrupled.

Few Australians now living in the UAE would deny that the arrival of Emirates was not a crucial moment in the evolution of this relationship. Emirates was then the sole UAE flag carrier and embarked on an ongong campaign to win hearts, minds and business from Australia.

South American debut

Will the airline now be able to pull off the same trick in Brazil? Last week Emirates flight EK 261 landed in Sao Paulo-Guarulhos International Airport cutting the flying time to Brazil from the UAE from more than 30 hours - routed through Europe - to a direct 17 hour flight, creating a huge buzz in the local business community.

The new route comes at the right time with trade between the Middle East and Latin America up by 28 per cent to $6.7 billion last year, and a distribution centre for Brazilian goods recently set up in Dubai's Jebel Ali Free Zone.

There is also the potential for investment from the Gulf into Brazil, although the current high prices in the Brazilian stock market might make some investors wait for a better time to buy. And with a very strong Lebanese community in Brazil there will be no shortage of Arabic speaking investment advisors on hand.

Emirates has also signed an agreement for interconnecting flights with TAM Airlines and LAN Airlines, and it may be that Gulf business can find better investment opportunities in Argentina which has arguably the cheapest real estate in the world for a developed country.

More flights

The UAE carrier will up its Sao Paulo route to seven flights a week from four in 2008, and expects a seat load factor above its 70 per cent commercial target. But the business opportunities alone should drive the expansion of this route, with a two-way search for new business openings.

There is indeed a comparison here with Australia in the late 1990s when the local currency was very depressed and some GCC nationals took the opportunity to buy at what now appear bargain basement prices.

On the other hand, South America produces a wealth of agricultural products, particularly beef, and industrial products like passenger buses and trucks and Embraer aircraft, while oil and petrochemicals will continue to flow from the Gulf to the region.

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