How Emirates carved its niche outside the airline alliances
October 2, 2025
As the world’s three major airline alliances pass their 25th anniversaries, Emirates stands apart as a carrier that has managed to thrive outside those frameworks.
At Routes World 2025 in Hong Kong, Trevor Chong, Divisional Vice President of Route Planning at Emirates, explained how geography, strategy, and selective partnerships have allowed the Dubai-based airline to chart its own course.
Emirates’ geographical advantage
From the beginning, the Gulf’s big A380 operator was positioned differently from its international rivals.
“We had a very strong geographical advantage being located in the Middle East, with a very powerful geocentric hub,” Chong said.
“That meant we could, by ourselves, to a large extent, offer a very broad network. We could individually offer many, many city pairs.”
That centrality has been crucial. Unlike carriers at the “end of the line” in Europe, North America, or Australasia, Emirates’ Dubai hub allows it to connect east and west with relative ease.
Today, the airline flies to more than 140 destinations, creating roughly 7,000 possible city pairs from its home base alone.
The importance of cooperation, with or without an alliance
Yet Emirates has never assumed that its hub-and-spoke strength is sufficient in an evolving travel landscape where passengers are increasingly demanding connections between more convenient, secondary airports that are closer to home.
“We know that’s not good enough in today’s world,” Chong said. “Yes, there is still urbanisation, but at the same time, COVID accelerated these shifts – over-tourism in some cities, people moving away because of remote work, the digital nomad lifestyle.
“The number of point As and the number of point Bs is getting more fragmented.”
That fragmentation is one reason alliances were created in the first place: to extend reach, consolidate schedules, and simplify connectivity.
But Emirates decided early on to stay outside those global groupings, opting instead for a more flexible mix of bilateral partnerships and organic growth.
“It’s why Emirates was able in the early days to say, I think we can do it alone,” Chong explained.
“But having said that, we’re definitely for airline cooperation.”
Interline and codeshare partners
Emirates’ cooperation strategy is notable for its pragmatism.
Rather than tie itself to one alliance, it works with over 100 interline partners and between 30 and 35 codeshare partners worldwide.
These are not limited to airlines; some are with rail and bus operators, extending Emirates’ reach into secondary and tertiary cities without the need for additional aircraft.
This hybrid approach has helped Emirates expand its footprint while retaining the independence to grow on its own terms.
Instead of feeding traffic into a shared alliance system, it can build direct commercial relationships that best complement its network.
For travellers, the result is access to a vast number of destinations, whether through Dubai or via local partners on the ground.
As alliances celebrate a quarter-century of collaboration – Star Alliance, Oneworld, and SkyTeam marked their 25th anniversaries between 2022 and 2024, celebrating a quarter-century of cooperation since their launches in 1997, 1999, and 2000, respectively – Emirates’ Chong said the airline’s success highlights a different path: one that blends independence with selective cooperation.
