Johannesburg welcomed its first scheduled Emirates A380 service, as flight EK761 from Dubai arrived at O R Tambo International Airport.

Johannesburg, the economic powerhouse of South Africa, is the first destination for the double-decker in Africa and the sixteenth destination on the Emirates A380 network.

“The demand for Emirates’ services in and out of Johannesburg has always been high, with passenger growth of more than 27 percent over the last year,” said Jean Luc Grillet, Emirates’ Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, Africa.

Over the last year, Emirates has carried more than 900,000 passengers across its three South African gateways – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg. In the first eight months of 2011, the airline also carried more than 37,500 tonnes of high value cargo on its South African routes, with exports up 26 percent from the same period in 2010.

Emirates is the largest operator of the environmentally friendly double-decker aircraft, flying the A380 to London Heathrow (double-daily), Manchester, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Toronto, Seoul, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai, Jeddah, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Auckland.

The Johannesburg A380 service operates daily as EK 761, departing Dubai at 0440hrs (Dubai time) and arriving at O R Tambo International Airport at 1050hrs (SA time). The return flight, EK762, departs Johannesburg at 1410hrs (SA time) and arrives in Dubai at 0010hrs (Dubai time) the following day.

Emirates operates flights on a daily schedule from Malta to Dubai via Larnaka, Cyprus.