Hello Tomorrow to Fly Better: The Story Behind Emirates' Changing Promise

1985: Two borrowed jets and $10 million

Emirates started in March 1985, when Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, then Dubai's Defence Minister, asked Sir Maurice Flanagan, managing director of Dubai ground-handling agent dnata, to look into starting an airline from scratch. The brief was reportedly simple: "look good, be good, and make money" — with no government subsidies and no protected routes, in line with Dubai's open-skies policy. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum became chairman in 1985 and still holds that role today.

Emirates had no aircraft of its own to start with. Its first flights, on 25 October 1985, were operated with a wet-leased Boeing 737 and Airbus A310 repainted in Emirates colours, flying to Karachi and Mumbai with help from Pakistan International Airlines, which supplied crew and training. Seed capital was $10 million from the Dubai government. Emirates took delivery of its first owned aircraft, an Airbus A310, in July 1987.

Before Hello Tomorrow: two other promises

The brand history most people know starts in 2012, but Hello Tomorrow wasn't Emirates' first slogan, or even its second. In the 1990s the airline ran under "So be good to yourself, Fly Emirates." In 2004, that gave way to "Fly Emirates. Keep Discovering." — a pitch that held for close to a decade. Counting Hello Tomorrow and Fly Better, that's at least four brand platforms across four decades.

Over the same period, the airline itself grew substantially. Emirates took delivery of its first Airbus A380 in 2008 and became the world's largest A380 operator by a wide margin, with its final A380 arriving in December 2021 from an order running well past 100 aircraft. Today's fleet runs to roughly 260-270 aircraft flying to more than 130 destinations.

2012: Hello Tomorrow

Hello Tomorrow launched in 2012 as a global brand platform across more than 80 markets, created by agency StrawberryFrog with print executed through Impact BBDO Dubai. The concept centred on what the campaign called "globalistas" — people who live for new cultures, food, fashion, art and music — and framed Emirates as a bridge connecting them to the rest of the world. Launch placements included billboards in Times Square and Milan's Central Station, alongside TV, print and digital executions.

The campaign's most recognisable face arrived later, in 2015, when Emirates signed Jennifer Aniston for a reported $20 million global campaign, with her personal deal said to be worth around $5 million (Emirates never confirmed the exact figure). The timing followed rival Etihad's earlier signing of Nicole Kidman as its own brand ambassador the year before. Aniston's ads ran three years into the Hello Tomorrow platform rather than at its 2012 launch, though many people now associate her with the campaign as a whole.

2018: Fly Better

Emirates retired Hello Tomorrow on 1 November 2018 in favour of "Fly Better," a platform that shifted the focus from the idea of connection to the aircraft, cabin and flight experience itself. The launch included a film by Michael Gracey, director of The Greatest Showman, built around a cabin-crew member morphing into a dancer to showcase Emirates' 1,000-plus-title ICE inflight entertainment system, plus a second, destinations-led film. Its first major placement was UK primetime television, during an episode of The X Factor.

Emirates President Sir Tim Clark described the shift as continuity rather than change, saying flying Emirates means enjoying a better flying experience regardless of how much bigger the airline had become — pointing to seatback screens, enclosed First Class suites and A380 shower spas as existing examples of that experience.

Backing the promise with investment

In the years since, Emirates has put substantial spending behind a cabin retrofit programme — reworking existing aircraft interiors rather than only relying on new deliveries. The programme was first announced in November 2021, covering 105 aircraft; work began in November 2022; the scope expanded to 191 aircraft in 2024, then to 219 aircraft later that year, which Emirates described as reflecting strong customer demand. It's now a $5 billion investment across those 219 aircraft. As of this year, 100 aircraft have been fully reworked (47 A380s and 53 Boeing 777s), involving more than 400 engineers, roughly 4.4 million man-hours of cabin work, and more than 3,800 new Premium Economy seats installed.

Alongside the retrofit, Emirates introduced the U-Dream headrest, a multi-way adjustable headrest for Economy Class, first on three A350 aircraft, with a fleet-wide rollout across all A350s planned by the end of the year. It also comes pre-installed on the 270 Boeing 777X aircraft Emirates has on order; retrofit installations on existing A380 and 777 aircraft are scheduled to begin in 2027.

A smaller-scale example of the same approach: Emirates' cabin crew uniform — beige, with a signature scarf carrying seven pleats, one for each emirate — involved 1.627 million metres of fabric, 153,000 km of thread and more than 1.8 million buttons across uniforms for its 20,000-plus cabin crew, each of whom completes eight weeks of training in Dubai before their first flight.

Even the logo changed

Emirates' livery has changed three times since 1985. The original design, by UK firm Negus & Negus, carried a stylised UAE flag on the tailfin with a gold English-and-Arabic wordmark. A 1999 refresh enlarged and repositioned the English logotype and revised the tailfin flag. In March 2023, Emirates unveiled its first redesign in roughly 24 years: a 3D-effect flowing UAE flag on the tailfin, with red wingtips carrying white, reversed Arabic calligraphy.

On and off the pitch

Some of Emirates' brand investment has gone into sponsorship rather than the aircraft itself. Emirates signed Arsenal to a stadium-naming-plus-shirt deal in October 2004 — Emirates Stadium from 2006, shirt sponsorship from 2006-07, an original package reported at £90-100 million, renewed and expanded several times since. It has been Real Madrid's primary shirt sponsor since 2013-14, with a 2026 renewal running through the 2030-31 season reportedly the largest shirt-sponsorship deal in world football.

In November 2014, Emirates was the first major sponsor to publicly end its relationship with FIFA, at the height of the corruption allegations surrounding the Qatar 2022 and Russia 2018 World Cup bids. Emirates cited contract terms as the reason, rather than the scandal itself.

Awards and industry rankings

Emirates has won Skytrax's "World's Best Airline" title four times — 2001 (the inaugural year), 2002, 2013 and 2016. Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines have topped every edition since, with Emirates placing third in 2024. Separately, Brand Finance's 2026 Airlines 50 report ranks Emirates as the third most valuable airline brand globally at $10.6 billion, up 27% year-on-year, behind Delta and United.