Emirates open for bilateral partnerships but not airline alliances

In a French newspaper, Emirates’ Executive Vice President Thierry Antinori has confirmed Emirates preference to remain outside of global airline but will consider bilateral partnerships. “We don’t want to enter a global alliance like Star Alliance, Skyteam or Oneworld which would be a brake to our development,” he said. “Our strategy is simply to fill out our network by concluding agreements with companies that cover best the part of the network we want to develop,” Antinori explained. Emirates has bilateral cooperation arrangements with Qantas and low-cost carrier EasyJet and Antinori has confirmed that Emirates was in talks with American Airlines