👉 Background: Emirates is the Dubai-based airline, owned by the Government of Dubai. It’s been jetting Aussies to their Euro-summer for decades. But it ain't just Aussies because Emirates s over 3,600 flights per week to more than 150 cities globally.

👉 What happened: Now, Emirates has announced plans to launch a new courier express network into Australia. This means packages will hitch a ride in the belly of Emirates’ passenger planes. They’re already looking at putting packages on 70 flights per week into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth.

👉 What else: Australia is only the eighth country to be added to the Courier Express network, with other countries like the US, India and China to come soon. And this move puts Emirates in direct competition with Qantas and Australia Post.

What's the key learning?

💡Airlines don’t just make money from passengers and their oversized luggage… because the cargo hold can be a goldmine. In fact, most passenger airlines earn between 7-15% of their total revenue from cargo operations.

💡Emirates want to utilise the unused "belly space" on existing flights.  And the timing makes sense. In the past two years, there has been a 45% spike in inbound small parcels to Australia. In other words, too many Temu orders.

💡This has become a way for Emirates to scale fast without the cost of building new logistics systems from scratch. And as e-commerce demand grows, this new business will give Emirates a foothold in a very lucrative… and very far-away market.