Emirates President Tim Clark warned that the aviation industry is in “uncharted territory” as U.S. President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariffs and trade disputes weigh on global growth and threaten to drive up costs for airlines worldwide.
“Right now, we are in troubled times,” Clark told CNBC in an interview recorded March 20 — ahead of Washington’s announcement of its latest global levies.
“It’s uncharted because it involves a measure of reset to a level that the global economy probably hasn’t seen since the financial crisis of 2008-2009,” Clark said, pointing to growing pressures on carriers and to the ripple effect across the aviation supply chain.
Clark, who has led Emirates for more than two decades, helped grow the Dubai-based carrier into the world’s largest long haul airline, steering it through the post-9/11 downturn, the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse in travel demand during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“It’s early days to see what effect the resetting of the terms of trade will have on the global economy and ergo discretionary demand for leisure travel,” he said, adding that, despite the tariffs rattling global markets, both Emirates and the industry can weather the storm.
“Business models like Emirates, given the international scope of what it does, the strength of what it does, will be able to ride this particular wave,” he said.
Turbulence ahead
The Emirates boss offered a sharp take on the Trump administration’s motivations, framing the trade escalation as a deliberate “trade reset” aimed at reshaping global commerce — though he warned it could unleash “troubled waters” in the interim.
China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. aerospace giants like Boeing and GE Aerospace threaten to squeeze Emirates indirectly, as costs ripple across the supply chain for aircraft and parts. Emirates operates one of the world’s largest wide-body fleets and is a major customer of Boeing and Airbus.
Despite the turbulence, Clark said he was cautiously optimistic on forward demand. Long-haul travel, he said, remains “very strong,” with forward bookings solid through the rest of this year and into early 2026.
Impact on global aviation and airlines
A day before the trade tariffs were unveiled, International Air Transport Association chief Willie Walsh said that the levies imposed by Washington were unlikely to stem air travel demand’s post-Covid-19 resurgence.
“It’s additional uncertainty which we never welcome but we’ve always been able to manage,” Walsh said in an interview cited by Reuters. Industry analysts are meanwhile cutting their travel demand outlook for 2025.
Other aviation industry figures were more pessimistic than Walsh since the imposition of the latest U.S. duties, especially when looking at the impact on the cost of building and refurbishing aircraft.
The new tariff regime “certainly makes things more expensive for the industry,” Dak Hardwick, vice president of international affairs at the Aerospace Industries Association, told CNBC. The AIA represents Boeing, GE Aerospace, Airbus and dozens of other aerospace and defense companies.
Airline stocks are down by double-digits since the April 2 White House announcement, as the new trade rules imposed by Trump mean airlines will be paying a lot more for jets and equipment crucial to their operations.
Many integral parts like jet engines are comprised of components from all over the world. The engines used in the Boeing 737 MAX and Airbus A320, for instance, are produced by a 50-50 joint venture between GE Aerospace and French aviation manufacturer Safran.
— Leslie Josephs contributed to this report
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