Dubai’s flagship carrier Emirates tapped HSBC as its sole senior arranger and original lender to finance the purchase of four additional Airbus A350-900 jets, the leading lender said in a post on LinkedIn. This marks the airline’s return to the Japanese operating lease with call option (Jolco) market — in which the firm was very active between 2014 and 2019, raising over AED 28 bn. The exact size of the facility was not disclosed.

Edging away from Boeing? Emirates’ embrace of Airbus vessels comes months after the airline’s President Tim Clark slammed rival planemaker Boeing in October for its 777x delivery delays, indicating that the airline “had to make significant and highly expensive amendments to [its] fleet programmes as a result of Boeing’s multiple contractual shortfalls.” Clark told Bloomberg last July that he does not expect Boeing’s 777X aircraft to enter commercial services before 2026.

REFRESHER- Emirates to expand cargo fleet: The airline ordered five Boeing 777 freighters last October to be delivered in 2025 and 2026, in addition to extending the leases for four Boeing 777s in its current fleet with aviation services firm Dubai Aerospace Enterprise. Emirates Skycargo — the airline’s cargo arm — is slated to double its existing fleet of 11 units to 21 Boeing 777s by December 2026.

Fleet expansion matches network growth targets: Emirates serves 148 destinations — including 140 for passengers and eight for cargo — and aims to exceed 170 by 2030, Chief Commercial Officer Adnan Kazim told EnterpriseAM at the opening ceremony of Emirates World’s store in Egypt last month.

REMEMBER- The airline is coping with industry-wide supply chain disruptions by earmarking USD 5 bn toward retrofitting its existing aircraft, the company announced earlier this month. Emirates is upgrading aircraft and equipping them with new tech upgrades to extend the life span of some models — including Airbus A380 jumbo and Boeing’s 777— at its engineering complexes in Dubai in lieu of dealing with overburdened backlogs.

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