Following the news that Emirates will cover customers from COVID-19 expenses to boost travel confidence;

Mathew George, Ph.D., Aerospace & Defense Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“This is another step taken by Emirates to ensure customers feel safe when travelling with the airline and to bring tourists and investment back to Dubai. Emirates earlier announced measures to provide a complimentary travel hygiene kit to all passengers and this announcement builds on that, providing cover at no additional cost to the passenger, irrespective of class of travel.

“No additional cost to the consumer will be a welcome differentiator as GlobalData’s survey ending 12 July found that 37% of respondents in the UAE felt they would be financially worse off over the next month.

“According to GlobalData, 45% of Generation X in the UAE remain ‘extremely concerned’ about COVID-19. Generation X is more risk averse than younger generations due to greater concerns surrounding health and safety. Within this demographic, over a third of respondents ‘strongly agree’ they have had to change or cancel upcoming domestic (22%) and international (38%) plans.

“Emirates hopes to change the perception of flying by assuring passengers of sufficient safety measures before and during their travel, and an additional health cover should to them to travel.

“Airlines and countries are slowly opening up, and are looking to reverse the headwinds brought about by COVID-19. It will be interesting to see how many customers will change their plans due to this offering from Emirates, and how this will affect the airline’s bottom line. The road to recovery will be a long one, but this as a necessary step and Emirates may now be prepared to deal with some short-to-mid-term pain for a gain in the longer term.”