You own the recording
Nothing is published without your sign-off, and you can withdraw it at any time — including years from now.
EmiratesAlumni · Built By Icons
You were part of the story. Help us preserve it.
A private network for the people who built Emirates and dnata — to find each other again, to put on the record how the hub was actually made to work, and to be reachable by whoever tries to build something like it next.
Why now
Emirates was started by a very small number of people, and most of them can still be named. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum has been chairman since 1985 — an unbroken forty-one years, which is close to unheard of in any large institution. Maurice Flanagan, who was handed a five-month deadline and ten million dollars in March 1985 and built the airline inside it, passed away in London in May 2015. Tim Clark joined at launch as head of airline planning, has been president of the airline since 2003, and as of August 2026 no successor has been publicly named.
The airline publishes its fleet, its routes and its results every year. It publishes almost nothing about method: how the network was planned when there was no traffic to plan against, why the 777 was ordered in 1992 and the A380 in 2000, what was actually argued about before a screen went into every seat in 1992, what it took to restart an airline that had stopped completely in March 2020. That judgement sits in a few dozen heads, most of them now at or past retirement, and it exists in no other form.
Legacy
The archives hold what was produced. They hold almost nothing about how a bureau was opened, what was argued about the week before a launch, or what any of it cost internally. That sits in a few hundred heads, and there is no other copy.
One hour, once. A recorded conversation about something you made happen — what the problem was, what you decided, what it cost, what you would do differently. Not a CV, and not an interview about the industry.
Nothing is published without your sign-off, and you can withdraw it at any time — including years from now.
Your period, your function, what you built. Thirty minutes to add.
Attached to the moment you were part of, so you are found by people looking for that moment.
You choose what is visible, and to whom. Nothing is public because we put it there.
Impact
An archive nobody can query is a cupboard. Somebody is about to attempt what you already did.
A ministry establishing a news network. A central bank licensing its first Islamic institution. A university building a research arm from nothing. A founder opening a bureau in a city where the rules are unwritten. Every one of those problems has already been solved — by someone who is no longer asked.
A question about how something was done returns the answer of the person who did it, attributed, in their own words.
The person looking for you does not know your name. They know what they are stuck on.
From being quoted, to a single call, to sitting on the team that builds the thing.
Where it goes
The directory is not a memorial. It is where the people who need what you know come to find you — and every approach reaches us first, never you directly.
An hour of your judgement, at a rate you set. Someone building the same thing pays to skip a year of mistakes.
Longer engagements assembled around a brief. You take the ones that suit you and decline the rest.
Producers looking for someone who was actually in the room, not another commentator.
Conferences and internal sessions that want the person who made the decision, not a summary of it.
Institutions that need someone who has already been through what they are about to attempt.
Journalists who would rather get it right than get it first.
Someone thirty years behind you, asking the questions you once asked.
Teaching the method to the people who will need it next.
You set a rate regardless, for two reasons that have nothing to do with income. It filters out unserious requests. And it protects everyone behind you: if the most senior people work for nothing, the market for the people thirty years younger collapses. Where the fee then goes is a separate decision, and it is yours.
The default. No explanation required, and none asked for.
Paid directly to a charity, hospital, university or scholarship you nominate. It never touches your account.
Fees accumulate into something permanent — a scholarship, a prize, a fellowship that carries your name.
A stated number of hours a year to institutions that cannot pay. Shown on your profile as a commitment.
Your email is never published and never sold. Every request comes to us, reaches you with the sender’s identity withheld, and goes no further unless you say yes. You set your own rate. The share is agreed with you before any work starts.
Six ways to take part
Most members start with one and add another later. None of them requires you to be looking for anything.
Add your name, your period and your function to the founding directory.
One profile. Thirty minutes.Record one interview about something you built or lived through.
One hour, once.Take occasional paid advisory calls in your area of expertise.
You set the availability.Join an assembled team on a commissioned build.
By mandate, when it suits you.Guide someone earlier in the career you already had.
A few hours a quarter.Name the people who must be in this network, and open the door.
Introductions only.What we promise you
This is the part that matters most, and it is not negotiable.
The expertise we are assembling
An airline is not one discipline. Tell us which of these you worked in, and for how long — that is the whole of the first form.
Crew, training, standards and the running of a round-the-clock long-haul operation.
Line and base maintenance, the engineering centres, and the cabin retrofit programme.
Route selection, schedule design, and the aircraft orders the network was built around.
The hub itself — turnarounds, connections, baggage, and dnata's ground handling.
Cabin interiors, inflight entertainment and connectivity, catering and onboard service.
Sales, revenue optimisation, distribution, loyalty and the country-by-country commercial build.
Emirates SkyCargo, freighters, the cargo terminal, and the logistics business around it.
Finance, aeropolitical and regulatory affairs, procurement, and the running of the group.
The full history
Era by era, with the difficult chapters, the people who built it, and — at the end — an explicit list of the questions no public source can answer. That last section is the reason this page exists.
What we are asking for
Join the founding directory: your period, your function, what you built. Thirty minutes.
Sit for one recorded conversation about something you made happen. It becomes part of the archive.
Name three people who must be in this network — and, if you can, make the introduction.
The founding directory
Members who asked to be listed publicly. Everyone else is here too, privately.
No names are shown yet. Everyone who has joined is held privately, and the first names appear here on the day the directory opens.
Tell us what you need. We pass it to them with your name withheld, and they decide whether to take it further. We come back to you either way.
Add your name
Emirates
Five questions, about ten minutes. Nothing you write here is published — it goes to the directory, private by default.
Emirates Alumni is an independent initiative created by former colleagues. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or a property of Emirates or the Emirates Group. The Emirates name is used here only to describe who this community is for. If the airline chooses to support the project, that relationship will be stated openly on this page.
If you helped build any of this, you belong here — and so do the people you worked with. Please pass the link on.