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On the 22nd of November ‘Emirates’ company placed an order for the purchase of 24 new Boeings-777-300ER airliners, 10 model 777-200 LR liners and 8 freight carriers.
According to experts, after the purchase deal (the total cost of which is $9.7 billion), the first delivery of which will be made in 2007, ‘Emirates’ will become the largest operator of Boeing-777s with a total of 51 examples. What is more, the national carrier of the UAE has the right to buy 20 more plane of the model.
Boeing-777-200 LR has topped the league table for distance traveled in long distance flights among civil planes and can carry up to 301 passengers and their luggage up to the distance of up to 17445 kilometers. The even larger Boeing 777-300 is analogous to the Beoing-741-100 and 747-200 but is more economical. It can carry 60 passengers in first and business class and 320 of economy class.
As Victor Anoshkin, PR manager of the Boeing representative office in Russia and the CIS countries, told BANKO at the moment in addition to Emirates, 42 other airline companies placed orders for Boeing-777 from various countries, however there are no Russian carriers in the list. According to him, there are not even any negotiations.
The reason for this is obvious however: protectionism through high customs tariffs inflates the already high price of foreign aircraft by 40%. Several years ago, by special quota two Boeings-777-200Er were brought into Russia which were leased by Aeroflot. However, according to Irina Dannenberd, head of press-service of the national carrier, the company ultimately chose Boeing-767 in the end to avoid having to maintain several different models of aircraft. The last Boeing-777 left ‘Aeroflot’ this year.
However, the fact that the Middle Eastern carrier has the newest planes does not yet guarantee its supremacy over the Russian carriers. Anyway, according to experts who work on the travel market, comfort and prestige are definitely important but the price politics of the airline company also plays its role. For example, the cost of a block seat for Moscow-Dubai by ‘Emirates’ is $260 higher than ‘Aeroflot’. A wish to build long-term relationships with retail partners is also important. Some operators believe that it is difficult to work with ‘Emirates’: the airlines willingly work with travel firms in low season but offers no guarantee that it would not refuse requests for block seats during high season.
