Emirates has received 20 Airbus aircraft since the start of the year and expects four more before the end of 2026, bringing its deliveries for the year to 24, a senior executive said on Sunday.
Adnan Kazim, deputy president and chief commercial officer of the Dubai airline, told CNBC Arabia that Emirates will keep taking Airbus jets at a rate of one a month in 2027. It will begin receiving its new Boeing aircraft from summer 2027.
Emirates has spent about $7 billion since 2021 on a program to retrofit 219 aircraft, Kazim said. It has completed 104 so far and aims to reach 116 by the end of this year.
Strong travel demand helped the airline absorb part of the cost of higher fuel prices, he said.
Kazim spoke as Emirates marked 40 years of flights to Egypt at a dinner at the Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo.
The airline has carried about 13.2 million passengers on some 50,000 flights between Dubai and Cairo since it launched the route in April 1986, according to a company statement carried by Al Bayan.
Cairo was the first destination in the Middle East and Africa added to the Emirates network, less than a year after the airline was founded. It started with three flights a week.
Emirates now operates 35 weekly flights between Dubai and Cairo using Airbus A380 and Boeing 777 aircraft.
Load factors on Egypt flights are currently around 75% despite events in the region, Kazim told CNBC Arabia.
