A companion piece to Episode 24 of the BMD marketing case-study series, the one that closes Season 1 and the ninth of the Gulf run. The headline is that Emirates is the most valuable airline brand outside North America, worth 10.6 billion dollars. The same consultancy called it the most valuable airline brand in the world in 2016, at 7.7 billion. The number went up. The position went down. Both moves have the same cause, and it is not the advertising.
Contents
Ten point six billion dollars, and the year nobody quotes
In April 2026 Brand Finance published its Airlines 50 and put Emirates third in the world, with a brand value of 10.6 billion dollars, up 27 per cent, the most valuable airline brand outside North America. Every retelling of that sentence is accurate. It is the year underneath it that never appears.
In 2016 the same consultancy, using the same method, called Emirates the most valuable airline brand in the world. The figure was 7.7 billion dollars, up 17 per cent, and the airline sat at 171 in the Global 500, which the press release noted was 47 places above the next airline brand on the list. Not third. First, by a distance nobody has come close to since.
So across ten years of the most disciplined premium positioning in aviation, two brand platforms, one unbroken livery and a sponsorship book that puts the name on Arsenal, Real Madrid and AC Milan at the same time, the brand value rose about 38 per cent in nominal dollars and the ranking fell two places. Delta went from 10.8 billion to 18.6 billion in three reports. United passed Emirates. The gap did not close. It opened.
There is a second year that does not appear either. In the 2021 report the figure was 5.3 billion dollars, down 12 per cent, and Emirates was the third most valuable brand in the Middle East, behind Etisalat and stc. Nothing about the brand had changed. The livery was the same, the promise was the same, the shirt sponsorships were still running. What had changed was that the aircraft were on the ground.
That is the whole episode. A brand valuation is a model of future revenue with the brand's name on the output. It rises when the airline sells more seats and falls when it sells fewer, which makes it a fine description of an airline and useless as evidence about its marketing.
What Emirates actually is, and it is the best in the business
Start with what is true, because it is a lot, and because an episode that hides it to protect an angle is doing the thing this series exists to criticise.
For the year to 31 March 2026 the Emirates Group reported record revenue of 150.5 billion dirhams, about 41.0 billion dollars, and a record profit before tax of 24.4 billion dirhams, about 6.6 billion. The airline on its own made 22.8 billion dirhams, about 6.2 billion dollars, on revenue of 130.9 billion dirhams, about 35.7 billion, which is a pre-tax margin of 17.4 per cent. Cash closed at 59.6 billion dirhams. In an industry whose entire history of accumulated profit is roughly one good decade, Emirates is the most profitable airline in the world, and it is not a close contest.
The consistency is real too. Hello Tomorrow launched in April 2012 and ran for six and a half years. Fly Better replaced it on 1 November 2018 and has run ever since. Two platforms in fourteen years is close to unheard of at this budget, and in that time the wordmark, the Arabic calligraphy, the livery and the tone of voice have not been redrawn once. The airline is recognisably itself in 137 destinations across 72 countries.
And the spectacle is real. The name has been on the Emirates Stadium since 2004, which is the longest-running stadium naming-rights partnership in England. Arsenal's shirt deal was renewed to 2028 at a reported figure of up to 70 million pounds a season, up from up to 50 million. Real Madrid's runs at a reported 70 million euros a season plus variables. AC Milan's is around 30 million euros a year to 2029. Three football clubs, and the annual cost bounded from the far side of the contracts sits near 200 million dollars before anything else in the portfolio is counted.
None of that is in dispute here, and none of it is what the 10.6 billion dollars measures. The point of this episode is the number, not the company.
The decision: the number was never a price
Brand Finance values brands by Royalty Relief, which is the standard method and compliant with ISO 10668. The consultancy states it plainly: brand value is the net economic benefit an owner would get by licensing the brand in an open market.
The calculation has three moving parts. A forecast of the revenue the brand will earn. A royalty rate, drawn from a range for the sector and adjusted by a Brand Strength Index score out of 100 that weighs things like familiarity, reputation and staff. And a discount rate, applied to bring the stream of hypothetical royalties back to a present value.
Read that again with a marketer's eye, because it decides everything that follows. Two of the three inputs are financial forecasts. One is the brand. And the brand input is a rate, which moves in fractions of a percentage point and slowly, while the revenue input moves with load factors, fares, fuel and the size of the fleet.
So a brand valuation is not a price. Nobody paid it, nobody offered it, and no transaction exists against which it could be tested. This is the fourth lever in the series, that a price is a reading taken on a date, pointed at a figure where no money changed hands at all. A Nice One share price is wrong in a week and right in principle, because somebody traded at it. A brand valuation cannot be wrong in that sense, because there is nothing to compare it to.
That is not a criticism of the method, which is careful and consistent and useful for exactly what it was built for, which is licensing, tax and transfer pricing. It is a criticism of the sentence that always follows it: that the number proves the marketing worked.
The series, and what it did when the planes stopped
Put the nine readings in order and the argument stops needing to be made.
In 2016 the value was 7.7 billion dollars and the rank was first in the world. By the 2019 report it was 6.3 billion. In 2021 it was 5.3 billion, down 12 per cent, and third in the Middle East behind two telecoms. The 2024 report had it at 6.6 billion, up 30 per cent, fourth globally. The 2025 report, 8.4 billion, up 27 per cent, fourth. The 2026 report, 10.6 billion, up 27 per cent, third.
Now lay the airline's own audited results next to it. The year of the 12 per cent fall is the year Emirates reported a loss of 20.3 billion dirhams, about 5.5 billion dollars, its first in more than thirty years, on revenue down 66 per cent, and took a capital injection of 11.3 billion dirhams, about 3.1 billion dollars, from the Government of Dubai. The years of the 27 per cent rises are the years it posted 22.7 billion dirhams and then 24.4 billion dirhams of group profit, each a record.
The brand did not get 12 per cent worse in 2021 and it did not get 27 per cent better in 2026. The forecast did. Emirates ran the same platform, the same livery and the same shirts throughout, because a brand platform is the one thing an airline can keep running when its aircraft cannot.
One more reading finishes it. On Brand Finance's own Brand Strength Index, the part of the model that is actually about the brand, Emirates scores 86.0 out of 100. The strongest airline brand in the 2026 study is ANA, at 90.2 with a AAA+ rating. Emirates does not lead the index that measures brand strength. It leads, outside North America, the index that multiplies a revenue forecast. Guess which of the two gets written up.
The scoreboard
| Metric | Figure |
|---|---|
| The headline | Brand Finance valued the Emirates brand at 10.6 billion dollars in its Airlines 50 published in April 2026, up 27 per cent, third in the world and the most valuable airline brand outside North America |
| The year nobody quotes | The same consultancy valued Emirates at 7.7 billion dollars in 2016, up 17 per cent, and ranked it the most valuable airline brand in the world, at 171 in the Global 500 and 47 places above the next airline |
| The series | 7.7 billion dollars in 2016, 6.3 billion in 2019, 5.3 billion in 2021 at minus 12 per cent, 6.6 billion in 2024 at plus 30, 8.4 billion in 2025 at plus 27, 10.6 billion in 2026 at plus 27 |
| The rank | First in the world in 2016, fourth in the 2024 and 2025 studies, third in 2026, behind Delta at 18.6 billion dollars and United at 13.1 billion |
| The method | Royalty Relief, compliant with ISO 10668: a forecast of brand revenue multiplied by a royalty rate derived from a Brand Strength Index score out of 100, discounted to a net present value. No transaction, no payer, no counterparty |
| Brand strength | Emirates scores 86.0 out of 100 on Brand Finance's Brand Strength Index. The strongest airline brand in the 2026 study is ANA at 90.2 with a AAA+ rating |
| The audited scoreboard | Emirates Group revenue of 150.5 billion dirhams, about 41.0 billion dollars, and profit before tax of 24.4 billion dirhams, about 6.6 billion, for the year to 31 March 2026, both records. The airline alone: 130.9 billion dirhams of revenue and 22.8 billion of profit before tax, a 17.4 per cent margin |
| The year it fell | A loss of 20.3 billion dirhams, about 5.5 billion dollars, in 2020-21 on revenue down 66 per cent, the first loss in more than thirty years, with a capital injection of 11.3 billion dirhams, about 3.1 billion dollars, from the Government of Dubai |
| The brand-value-to-revenue ratio | Delta at 18.6 billion dollars of brand value on about 63.4 billion of 2025 revenue is about 29 per cent. Emirates at 10.6 billion on about 35.7 billion is about 30 per cent |
| The sponsorship book, bounded from the other side | Arsenal's shirt to 2028 at a reported up to 70 million pounds a season, raised from up to 50 million, plus the Emirates Stadium name since 2004. Real Madrid at a reported 70 million euros a season plus variables. AC Milan at around 30 million euros a year to 2029 |
| The network control group | Turkish Airlines closed 2025 with 516 aircraft flying to 303 destinations in 131 countries, more countries than any airline in the world, on 24.1 billion dollars of revenue, and is valued at 2.9 billion dollars, fifteenth. Emirates: around 260 aircraft, 137 destinations, 72 countries |
| The spectacle control group | Etihad held the Manchester City shirt and the Etihad Stadium naming rights at a reported 67.5 million pounds a year, the largest such deal in football when signed, and lost about 2.0 billion dollars in 2016, 1.5 billion in 2017 and 1.28 billion in 2018 |
| The thing that is not marketing | One-third of the world's population lives within a four-hour flight of Dubai and two-thirds within eight hours |
The figures in this table come from three kinds of source and they do not carry equal weight. The brand valuations, the rankings and the Brand Strength Index scores are Brand Finance's own published model outputs, taken from its Airlines 50 and Global 500 studies for the years stated, and they are estimates produced by a consultancy rather than prices anybody paid. The Emirates Group revenue, profit, loss and margin figures are audited and published in the group's own annual reports, as is the capital injection from the Government of Dubai. The Turkish Airlines, Delta, United, American, Qatar Airways and Etihad figures are those companies' own reported results as carried by the financial press. The sponsorship values are reported figures from the clubs' side of the contracts and from trade coverage, not disclosures by Emirates, which does not publish what it spends on any individual partnership. The destination, country and fleet counts are as stated by the airlines in 2026 and they change month to month. Several domains carrying these numbers are blocked by the egress proxy used to research this piece, among them brandfinance.com, the publisher of the brand valuations themselves, and emirates.com and its document host, so the figures attributed to them were confirmed through consistent search results quoting the pages and through a second outlet reporting the same number, rather than by opening the documents directly. None of those should be read as primary-sourced.
The autopsy: the ranking is mostly a revenue table
If the brand value tracks the financial forecast, the league table should look like a financial league table. It nearly does, and the exceptions are the informative part.
The 2026 top three by brand value are Delta at 18.6 billion dollars, United at 13.1 billion and Emirates at 10.6 billion. The 2025 revenues are Delta at about 63.4 billion dollars, United at about 57 billion and Emirates at about 35.7 billion. Delta's brand value is roughly 29 per cent of its revenue and Emirates' is roughly 30 per cent. Two airlines on opposite sides of the world, with nothing in common in how they advertise, landing within a point of each other on the same ratio.
The exception is American Airlines, which Emirates passed in the 2026 report while still being much the smaller airline by revenue. That looks like a point against the argument until you read the profit line. American made a reported 111 million dollars of net income on about 55 billion dollars of revenue in 2025. Emirates made 6.2 billion dollars of pre-tax profit on 35.7 billion. A model that discounts a stream of future royalties cares about the shape of the forecast, not only its first year, and a business growing at a 17.4 per cent margin forecasts differently from one at breakeven. The exception is not the brand. It is the P&L one line further down.
The consultancy says so itself, in writing, whenever it explains a move. Its own account of Qatar Airways rising 34 per cent to 5.2 billion dollars in the 2026 study names the airline's highest-ever annual revenue, a 6 per cent increase, passenger traffic up from 40 to 43.1 million, and roughly 17 per cent growth at the cargo business. Three financial facts and a fleet. No campaign, no platform, no sponsorship. That is the publisher of the number telling you what the number is made of, and it is quoted almost nowhere.
So the popular explanation, that a decade of consistent premium positioning compounded into 10.6 billion dollars of brand value, has the arrow pointing the wrong way. The consistency did not build the valuation. The traffic did. The consistency is what kept the valuation from falling further than 12 per cent in the year the traffic went to nothing, which is a genuine and much smaller claim, and the only one the evidence will carry.
The control groups, and there are two good ones
The first is Turkish Airlines, and it settles the network half of the story. At the end of 2025 it had 516 aircraft and flew to 303 destinations in 131 countries, more countries than any airline in the world, on revenue of 24.1 billion dollars and net income of 2.9 billion. Emirates has around 260 aircraft and 137 destinations in 72 countries. Turkish flies to more than twice as many places and 59 more countries, with twice the fleet. Brand Finance values the Turkish brand at 2.9 billion dollars, fifteenth, against Emirates at 10.6 billion, third.
Then look at what the two did in the same year. Turkish rose 27 per cent. Emirates rose 27 per cent. The whole Airlines 50 rose 11 per cent. Two airlines with nothing in common in their marketing, their geography, their ownership or their positioning, moving by the identical percentage in the same twelve months, is what a sector-wide financial model looks like when you watch it from outside.
The second control group is the one that answers the spectacle half, and it is next door. Etihad ran the same playbook harder per seat for a decade: the Manchester City shirt and the Etihad Stadium naming rights at a reported 67.5 million pounds a year, the largest deal of its kind in football when it was signed, against Arsenal's 50 million at the time. Same region, same years, same conviction that a global sports property buys a global brand. Etihad lost about 2.0 billion dollars in 2016, 1.5 billion in 2017 and 1.28 billion in 2018, roughly 4.67 billion across three years, and was still losing money in 2019.
Consistency and spectacle were present in both airlines. Only one of them had Dubai. One-third of the world's population is within a four-hour flight of it and two-thirds within eight, which is a fact about the planet rather than about a campaign. Add the open bilateral agreements, the fifth-freedom routes, a hub airport built to be transferred through rather than arrived at, and the largest A380 fleet ever assembled, and the machine is visible without reference to any advertisement.
That is the honest ranking of causes. Geography and policy first. Fleet and network second. Operating discipline third. A brand platform that made the whole thing legible and coherent for fourteen years, fourth, and genuinely valuable, and not worth 10.6 billion dollars, because that figure was never measuring it.
The right order: ask who paid before you quote the value
The portable version is three questions, and they take about five minutes on any number of this kind.
First, ask whether anybody paid it. A price has a payer, a date and a document. A valuation has a model, an author and a publication date. Both are useful and they are not the same kind of evidence, and the giveaway is that a valuation can never be wrong, because nothing ever tests it. When a figure has no payer, say whose model it is in the same sentence you say the number, every time.
Second, ask what moves it. Read the method, which is usually published and usually short. If two of three inputs are financial forecasts, then the figure is a financial forecast, and the correct thing to compare it against is the revenue line rather than the campaign. The test that costs nothing: find a year the business went badly and check what the measure did. If it fell while the marketing was identical, it was never measuring the marketing.
Third, ask what the same publisher says about somebody else. Rankings come with commentary, and the commentary on the brands you are not interested in is where the model shows its hand, because nobody is managing that paragraph. Brand Finance explained Qatar Airways with revenue, passengers and cargo. That is a free description of the machinery.
For a Saudi company this shows up in the room more often than any other number in this series. A consultancy sizes the brand at 400 million riyals, and the slide goes into the board pack under the marketing team's name. An award nominates the company for brand of the year and the entry fee is real money. A tracker puts awareness at 62 per cent. Every one of those is worth having and not one of them is a result, and the way to keep them honest is to write the source and the method next to the figure on the slide itself. Then put beside them the two numbers that do have payers: what it cost to acquire a customer this quarter, and what that customer has paid you since. If the brand asset is real, it shows up there as a cheaper first sale and a longer second one. If it only shows up in the consultancy's model, it is the consultancy's model.
The takeaways
Brand Finance called Emirates the most valuable airline brand in the world in 2016 at 7.7 billion dollars, 47 places above the next airline in the Global 500. In the 2026 study it is third at 10.6 billion, behind Delta at 18.6 billion and United at 13.1 billion. The value rose about 38 per cent in ten years and the rank fell two places.
The measure fell 12 per cent to 5.3 billion dollars in the 2021 study, in the year Emirates lost 20.3 billion dirhams, about 5.5 billion dollars, and took 11.3 billion dirhams of equity from the Government of Dubai. The platform, the livery and the sponsorships were unchanged throughout. A measure that falls when the aircraft stop is measuring the aircraft.
Royalty Relief multiplies a revenue forecast by a royalty rate set from brand strength, then discounts it. Two of the three inputs are financial. The ratio holds across the table: Delta's brand value is about 29 per cent of its 2025 revenue and Emirates' about 30 per cent.
On the part of the model that is actually about the brand, the Brand Strength Index, Emirates scores 86.0 out of 100 and the leader is ANA at 90.2 with AAA+. The index Emirates leads outside North America is the one that multiplies the forecast.
The control groups both hold. Turkish Airlines flies to 303 destinations in 131 countries, more countries than any airline, with 516 aircraft, and its brand is valued at 2.9 billion dollars against Emirates' 10.6 billion, and both rose exactly 27 per cent in the same year. Etihad bought the same kind of spectacle at a reported 67.5 million pounds a year and lost roughly 4.67 billion dollars between 2016 and 2018.
Say what worked, because Emirates is the real thing. Record group revenue of 150.5 billion dirhams and record profit before tax of 24.4 billion dirhams in 2025-26, a 17.4 per cent margin at the airline, the most profitable airline in the world, two brand platforms in fourteen years, one unbroken identity across 137 destinations in 72 countries. All of that is an achievement. None of it is what the 10.6 billion dollars measures.
Frequently asked questions
Is Emirates the world's most valuable airline brand?
Not in the current study. In Brand Finance's Airlines 50 published in April 2026, Emirates is third at 10.6 billion dollars, behind Delta at 18.6 billion and United at 13.1 billion. The accurate claim, and the one the consultancy makes, is that Emirates is the most valuable airline brand outside North America. It was first in the world once, in the 2016 study, at 7.7 billion dollars. So the airline's best ranking on this measure is ten years old, and the figure quoted today is both larger and lower.
What does a brand valuation actually measure?
Brand Finance uses Royalty Relief, which is the industry standard and compliant with ISO 10668. It forecasts the revenue the brand will earn, applies a royalty rate taken from comparable licensing deals in the sector and adjusted by a Brand Strength Index score out of 100, and discounts the resulting stream of hypothetical royalties to a present value. Two of the three inputs are financial forecasts. The brand enters as the rate, which moves slowly, while the revenue forecast moves with traffic, fares and fleet. That is why the output behaves like a financial measure, because most of it is one.
Did Emirates' brand value really fall during the pandemic?
Yes, and that is the most useful reading in the series. The 2021 study put the brand at 5.3 billion dollars, down 12 per cent, and placed Emirates third in the Middle East behind Etisalat and stc. In the matching financial year the airline lost 20.3 billion dirhams, about 5.5 billion dollars, on revenue down 66 per cent, its first loss in more than three decades, and the Government of Dubai injected 11.3 billion dirhams of capital. Nothing about the brand itself changed in that year: same livery, same Fly Better platform, same shirt sponsorships. A measure that moves that far while the marketing holds still is not tracking the marketing.
So does the sponsorship portfolio not work?
That is not what the evidence says, and the honest answer is that this analysis cannot tell you. What it can tell you is the cost, because the far side of each contract reports it: Arsenal's shirt to 2028 at up to a reported 70 million pounds a season plus the stadium name since 2004, Real Madrid at a reported 70 million euros a season, AC Milan at around 30 million euros a year. Roughly 200 million dollars a year from three football clubs alone, against 35.7 billion dollars of airline revenue. The thing that fails is the argument that the brand valuation is the proof, because Etihad bought comparable spectacle at 67.5 million pounds a year for Manchester City and lost about 4.67 billion dollars between 2016 and 2018.
What did build Emirates, then?
Geography and policy first. One-third of the world's population is within four hours of Dubai and two-thirds within eight, and the UAE's open bilateral agreements and fifth-freedom routes let the airline use that. Then the fleet and the hub: the largest A380 fleet ever assembled, and an airport built to be transferred through. Then operating discipline, which is visible in a 17.4 per cent pre-tax margin at the airline in 2025-26, the best in the industry. The brand platform sits on top of all of it and does a real job, which is making a machine that size legible and consistent in 72 countries. That is worth doing and it is not what the valuation is counting.
How should I treat a brand valuation in my own board pack?
Use it, and label it. Write the publisher's name and the method in the same sentence as the number, so the reader knows it is a model output rather than an offer. Never put it in a row that claims what the company is worth, because no counterparty has ever tested it. And set it beside two figures that do have payers: what a customer cost to acquire this quarter, and what that customer has paid you since. A brand that is genuinely working makes the first number smaller and the second one larger, and those two move for reasons you can act on.
This article is part of BMD's marketing case-study series. Episode 24 closes Season 1. Season 2 opens where this one keeps ending up, inside the company rather than outside it, with the question every episode has pointed at and none has answered: what a marketing department is actually for.
Sources and further reading
Brand Finance's Airlines 50 studies and the press releases that accompany them, for the Emirates brand value of 10.6 billion dollars at plus 27 per cent and third place in the 2026 study, 8.4 billion at plus 27 and fourth in 2025, 6.6 billion at plus 30 and fourth in 2024, 5.3 billion at minus 12 in 2021 and 6.3 billion in 2019, together with Delta at 18.6 billion, United at 13.1 billion, Qatar Airways at 5.2 billion at plus 34 per cent and Turkish Airlines at 2.9 billion at plus 27 and fifteenth, and the combined top 50 at 147 billion dollars, up 11 per cent. Brand Finance's Global 500 for 2016 and the coverage of it in Khaleej Times, Arabian Business, Gulf News and Emirates' own media centre, for the brand value of 7.7 billion dollars, the 17 per cent rise, the ranking as the world's most valuable airline brand, the position at 171 in the Global 500 and the note that this was 47 places above the next airline brand. Brand Finance's published methodology pages for the Royalty Relief approach, ISO 10668 compliance, the Brand Strength Index out of 100, the royalty rate range drawn from comparable licensing agreements, and the definition of brand value as the net economic benefit of licensing the brand in an open market. Brand Finance's 2026 commentary for the Brand Strength Index leader ANA at 90.2 with a AAA+ rating, for the Emirates score of 86.0, and for its own explanation of Qatar Airways' 34 per cent rise in terms of highest-ever annual revenue up 6 per cent, passenger traffic from 40 to 43.1 million and roughly 17 per cent cargo revenue growth. The Emirates Group annual reports and results announcements for the year to 31 March 2026, for record group revenue of 150.5 billion dirhams and profit before tax of 24.4 billion, the airline's 130.9 billion dirhams of revenue and 22.8 billion of profit before tax at a 17.4 per cent margin, cash of 59.6 billion dirhams, and total operating costs of about 108.1 billion dirhams with sales and marketing among the largest lines; and for the year to 31 March 2025 with group profit before tax of 22.7 billion dirhams. The Emirates Group 2020-21 results announcement and the coverage of it in Gulf News, AirInsight and Simple Flying, for the airline loss of 20.3 billion dirhams, about 5.5 billion dollars, the group loss of 22.1 billion, revenue down 66 per cent, the first loss in more than thirty years and the capital injection of 11.3 billion dirhams, about 3.1 billion dollars, from the Government of Dubai. Delta, United and American Airlines' own reported full-year results for 2024 and 2025 for the revenue figures of about 63.4 billion, 57 billion and 55 billion dollars and American's reported net income of about 111 million dollars. Turkish Airlines' 2025 results and AGBI's coverage of them for revenue of 24.1 billion dollars, up 6.3 per cent, net income of 2.9 billion, 93 million passengers, a fleet of 516 aircraft and a network of 303 destinations in 131 countries. Etihad Airways' annual results announcements as reported by Gulf News, The National, Aviation24 and Simple Flying for losses of about 1.95 to 2.0 billion dollars in 2016, 1.52 billion in 2017 and 1.28 billion in 2018, and Statista, SportsPro, Sportcal and Sporting Intelligence for the Manchester City shirt and Etihad Stadium arrangement at a reported 67.5 million pounds a year, the Arsenal renewal to 2028 at up to a reported 70 million pounds a season against up to 50 million previously, the Real Madrid renewal at a reported 70 million euros a season plus variables and the AC Milan extension at around 30 million euros a year to 2029. Emirates' own announcements and trade coverage for Hello Tomorrow launching in April 2012 and Fly Better replacing it on 1 November 2018, and for the 2026 network of 137 destinations in 72 countries on a fleet of around 260 aircraft. The Dubai Government Media Office and the Dubai Public Debt Management Office for the statement that one-third of the world's population is within a four-hour flight of Dubai and two-thirds within eight hours. One note on method. The domain brandfinance.com, which publishes every brand valuation in this article, is blocked by the network this piece was researched on, as are emirates.com and the host of its annual report PDFs. Every figure attributed to them here was confirmed through search results quoting the page and through a second outlet carrying the same number, and in several cases across differently worded searches returning identical wording. None of it was read from the document itself, and anything that turns on a single one of those figures is worth checking against Brand Finance's own report and the Emirates Group's published annual report.
About BMD
Most companies don't have a marketing problem. They have a marketing department that was never built. BMD is a boutique consultancy that installs structured, measurable marketing departments inside mid-market companies across the GCC. We don't run your campaigns, and we don't hand you a strategy deck and leave. We build the operating system: the structure, the measurement, and the ownership that turn marketing into a function leadership can rely on. The method is the BUILD framework, published and practiced: a book, an online program, a community of Gulf founders and marketers applying it, and diagnostics that replace assumptions with measurement. Delivered in Arabic and English, founder-led.
Redha Alayesh
A marketer with a software engineer's discipline and a scientist's mindset. Across 40+ marketing departments in the GCC, he built the BUILD framework to solve the problem he kept finding: capable marketers trapped inside companies that never built them a department.