GERMANY: Emirates' Tim Clark Says Revised Germany–UAE Air Service Agreement "Doesn't Work for Us"

FRANKFURT, Germany

• Emirates President Tim Clark says the new air services agreement between Germany and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which would let an Emirati airline fly to Berlin (BER), contains terms that "don't work for us" and "need to be clarified."
• Emirates has pushed for access to the German capital for more than 30 years. The revised agreement was announced in September during UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed's visit to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, alongside a UAE pledge to invest EUR 40 billion (USD 44.69 billion) in Germany.
• Under the agreement, Germany agreed to add Berlin to the four German airports Emirati carriers can already serve: Frankfurt (FRA), Munich (MUC), Düsseldorf (DUS), and Hamburg (HAM).
• Emirates has already applied for Berlin slots but has not started flights.
• Clark's main objection is that current capacity would be "frozen on the day the document is signed." UAE carriers currently have no cap on the number of flights to their four German airports, so the freeze would restrict Emirates from adding flights there.
• Clark suggested the restriction may come from wording differences, saying the German interpretation of the agreement "may read differently in German." He said he was surprised the agreement was drafted in English rather than German and Arabic, and has asked both governments for clarification.
• "Once we finally have clarity, things could change for us almost overnight," Clark told German aviation portal Airliners.de.
• Lufthansa, which has long opposed Emirates flights to Berlin, would benefit from a freeze, because Emirates could not add frequencies at its Frankfurt and Munich hubs.
• Emirates once flew three daily Munich–Dubai flights and now operates two. A capacity freeze would likely stop it from returning to three.

Sources:

• Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ)
• Bundesregierung