Emirates Airline President Tim Clark. File.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

India’s aspirations to develop hub airports for connecting passengers and grow economically are not “compatible” with its restrictive policies for foreign carriers, Emirates President Tim Clark said on Sunday (June 1, 2025), adding that the airline won’t be able to provide flights for the upcoming second airports in Delhi and Mumbai to open shortly.

“To grow hubs in the aviation world you have to have open access. It doesn’t work one way,” Emirates President told journalists on the sidelines of a three-day global airlines event being hosted by International Airline Transport Association. Mr Clark has been urging the Indian government to raise the number of seats airlines of Dubai and India are allowed to fly into each other’s territory.

“When you look at the other aspects of Indian economy- defence, media, technology- the government here is minded to expand those as quickly as it can. It’s not compatible with that expansive economic policy to restrict their access.”

The UAE has requested the Ministry of Civil Aviation to raise the seat capacity of 66,000 seats allowed to the airlines of the two sides to 1,40,000 seats. The UAE has also offered a 4:1 seat sharing ratio between the two sides, which will imply that Dubai will offer four seats to India for every additional seat offered by the latter to the former.

While Emirates has the highest number of flights deployed to India, the country’s importance for the airline is diminishing.

“It’s no longer as significant as it used to be because of the restriction on capacity,” Mr. Clark said.

Until last summer, Emirates had 171 weekly flights to India, followed by 133 weekly flights to the U.K. and 96 weekly flights to the U.S. In the absence of more seats from India, Emirates will also be unable to deploy flights for the upcoming second airports in Delhi and Mumbai, i.e Noida International Airport and Navi Mumbai airport.