Emirates, the Dubai-based global airline, launched its double-daily services to Beijing from 1 May, four months prior to celebrating the anniversary of its first flight to the city last year.
Initially the airline has increased its services from the current daily to 12 flights every week, and from 1 July, the busy Dubai-Beijing route will feature a double-daily non-stop service.
Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline said: “China is the new economic powerhouse and the world is beating a path to its capital Beijing. Since the launch of our Dubai-Beijing route last September, we have experienced strong demand from countries on our network and consistently high seat-load factors. We are in the business of creating convenient global air networks for our customers – both passengers and cargo – and the upcoming Olympic Games in 2008 will increase the tempo of demand for our services to Beijing.”
He added: “Emirates is confident that our twice-daily flights will accelerate bilateral ties between the two countries in the political, social, cultural, trade and tourism spheres.”
Emirates will serve the second daily with an Airbus A340-300 offering 267 seats in a three-class configuration – 12 seats in First Class, 42 in Business and 213 in Economy – and 13 tonnes of belly-hold cargo capacity. With the second daily, the airline will offer capacity in excess of 3,700 seats and 180 tonnes of cargo to Beijing every week.
Emirates began services to mainland China in 2004 with services to Shanghai, which it serves with daily non-stop Boeing 777-300ER flights offering nearly 2,550 passenger seats and 160 tonnes of cargo weekly. Emirates SkyCargo also serves Shanghai with six dedicated weekly Boeing 747-400F freighter services, offering an additional 720 tonnes of cargo capacity.
The airline also serves Hong Kong with 17 weekly passenger flights and 10 Boeing 747-400F freighter services – offering a total of 1,200 tonnes of capacity.
Emirates operates five flights weekly from Malta to Dubai via Larnaca, Cyprus, on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. As from 2 May, the airline started operating with a larger aircraft: a Boeing 777-200, which can carry a total of 346 passengers and 18 tonnes of cargo capacity.