Emirates and United Airlines are expected to announce a codeshare agreement in the coming weeks.
The two airlines sent US media an invitation for a September 14, 2022 event in Washington, DC. The invitation reportedly came hours after aviation analysis site The Air Current reported that United Airlines and Emirates are “plotting” a codeshare agreement.
The two carriers also made a series of playful exchanges on Twitter, with United Airlines asking Emirates if it wanted to “hangar out” on September 14, 2022.
@emirates
— United Airlines (@united) August 30, 2022
The partnership means that Emirates is likely to gain greater access to the US market, while United Airlines will increase its market reach in Africa, the Middle East, and India.
More importantly, the agreement between the two carriers will mean a big step towards establishing a cordial relationship between the big three US airlines and the big three Middle Eastern carriers.
In 2015, the three major US airlines (United, American Airlines (A1G) (AAL), and Delta Air Lines) launched a campaign to limit the growth of the trio of Gulf carriers (Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Qatar Airways) to the US, with the argument that Gulf carriers were taking the US travel market with the financial backing of their respective governments.
The pandemic seems to have altered the airlines’ market strategy and the past year has seen new airline partnerships such as Qatar Airways and Alaska Airlines, Qatar Airways and Air Canada (ADH2), and flight agreements between Etihad Airways and Finnair.