Emirates: The Airline of the Future

by Graeme Wilson

Media Prima [Published 2007]. Hardcover, 360 pp. Updated version, 2007. [From jacket flaps] In 1985, intent on propelling further the economic and social revolution that was transforming his country, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum started an airline. It was an era when airline start-ups were rare, and successes were rarer still. Yet he handed his team a cheque for $10 million and told them to go away and create a carrier for Dubai. Sheikh Mohammed insisted on the highest standards, that this new carrier compete within Dubai's long standing Open Skies policy and that the airline contribute to economic success of the emirate. This, he decreed, should be done using this $10 million contribution and no more. Emirates - as this fledgling carrier would come to be known - could not count on any further finance. The company would have to succeed on its own. Today, Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum and his team preside over a fleet that carried some 17 million passengers last year, has billions in aircraft on order and, by 2012, will have hundreds of aircraft in service. . . . The airline of the future portrays a remarkable story of corporate growth and success. Illustrated with over 300 photographs and some 80,000 words, anecdotal testimonial from those who have been part of this remarkable story has created one of the most vivid and colourful civil aviation books ever published.

360 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Udhara De Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

As an airline geek this hard-to-find book was an absolute pleasure to read, giving an inside (and therefore authorized) look at the history of one of the greatest airline success stories of all time. Some of the writing is dry at times and seems almost entirely extracted out of press releases and annual reports, but there are several stories of the making of the airline, particularly the early days, that I hadn’t read before.