Emirates partners with OpenAI to drive AI adoption across airline operations
Emirates has entered a collaboration with OpenAI to embed artificial intelligence across its core operations. The agreement includes company-wide rollout of ChatGPT Enterprise, new AI training programmes for staff, and an AI Centre of Excellence to take ideas from pilot to production.
The goal is clear: improve service, tighten processes, and build internal capability so teams can use AI where it matters-on the front line and in the back office.
What's changing for operations teams
Emirates will get early access to OpenAI research, dedicated executive sessions, and hands-on technical exploration. An internal AI Centre of Excellence will coordinate use case discovery, prototyping in sandbox environments, and scaled rollouts with governance.
ChatGPT Enterprise roll-out
ChatGPT Enterprise will sit across the group as a secure, business-grade assistant. Expect usage across customer contact, ops control, engineering support, and corporate functions-anywhere fast, accurate information and decision support reduce delays and rework.
For context on the platform, see ChatGPT Enterprise.
Staff training and internal champions
Emirates will launch AI literacy programmes to build practical skills, reduce adoption friction, and standardise safe usage. A champion network inside departments will help teams move from experiments to measurable outcomes.
Operational applications under review
- Customer service: Assisted responses, multilingual support, context-aware follow-ups, and better handoffs to agents to cut average handle time and improve first-contact resolution.
- Operational efficiency: Rapid retrieval of SOPs and manuals, shift briefings summarised from live data, and incident playbooks that guide responses during disruptions.
- Knowledge and process: Summarising long reports, drafting communications, automating routine documentation, and creating self-serve knowledge for crew and ground teams.
- Sandbox prototyping: Test agents against real workflows, measure accuracy and deflection, and promote only what hits agreed targets.
Leadership alignment and innovation
Executive sessions will map where AI fits in the airline's ecosystem and how it supports long-term technology and business strategy. Emirates and OpenAI will also collaborate on innovation projects and government-led accelerators to speed up learning and delivery.
What Ops leaders should do now
- Assign owners: Pair each use case with a business lead and a product lead. Define scope, risks, and decision rights upfront.
- Set measurable targets: Examples include on-time performance (OTP), delay minutes per rotation, turnaround variability, average handle time (AHT), first-contact resolution (FCR), CSAT/NPS, and cost per contact.
- Pick 2-3 focused pilots: Disruption communications assistant, knowledge assistant for SOPs, or customer messaging drafts with human review.
- Data and safety: Establish rules for PII handling, redaction, logging, and retention. Define human-in-the-loop steps where required.
- Quality management: Create test sets, acceptance criteria, and regression checks for every update. Track precision/recall on critical intents.
- Change and adoption: Provide short, role-based training. Integrate tools into existing systems to avoid context switching.
Risks and guardrails
- Accuracy: Ground responses in approved content and current data. Use retrieval techniques and constrain outputs to known procedures.
- Compliance: Maintain audit trails, versioned prompts, and approval workflows for regulated communications.
- Model drift: Schedule evaluations after model updates and keep fallback flows ready.
- Vendor lock-in: Use service abstractions and portable prompt patterns to keep options open.
Leadership comments
Ali Serdar Yakut, Executive Vice President IT, Emirates: "We see enormous potential for AI technology to support our business requirements, helping us tackle complex commercial challenges, strengthening our operations, and enhancing the customer experience. Closely working with OpenAI will make our technology investments both strategic and scalable, enabling us to deliver enhanced value to our employees and customers, fundamentally changing how we innovate, deliver value, and maintain our competitive edge in the industry."
Rod Solaimani, Regional Director, MENA & Central Asia, OpenAI: "Emirates Group has laid out a bold vision for how AI can transform the future of aviation. With this collaboration, we're proud to help them bring that vision to life - embedding intelligence across their operations, empowering teams with powerful new tools, and reimagining the travel experience for millions of customers."
The road ahead
The partnership prioritises process optimisation, talent development, and scaled technology rollouts. Expect a steady sequence of targeted pilots, clear metrics, and broader deployment as teams prove value and sharpen guardrails.
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