Emirates announced that its services to Australia would grow to 70 a week, providing much-needed capacity to cater to the increasing demand from around the airline’s network.
Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney will all receive additional flights, new aircraft and capacity involving the newest and most luxurious aircraft in the sky.
Emirates announced it will:
• grow services from the current 49 flights a week to 56 flights a week during 2008;
• increase services to 70 flights a week during 2009;
• fly twice daily to Brisbane in 2008;
• fly three times daily to Melbourne and Sydney from 2009; and
• launch Airbus A380 direct services from Dubai to Sydney and Melbourne in 2009.
At a press conference in Sydney, Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, chairman and chief executive, Emirates Airline and Group said: “Emirates has welcomed over six million passengers on their Australian flights since its first service to Melbourne in 1996 and today’s announcement represents a strong commitment to build on that growth.
“The Emirates-Australian partnership has been a tourism and trade success story.”
The second daily service to Brisbane will be introduced in October 2008 using the state-of-the-art Airbus A340-500 and the third daily service to Melbourne will commence in February 2009. Sydney will go to a triple daily service in late 2009. These three additional flights will all be non-stop from Dubai.
Emirates’ Airbus A380 services to Australia will commence in the first quarter of 2009 with a direct service to Sydney. The A380 service to Melbourne will come online as more aircraft are delivered from Airbus. Australia will be among the first countries to be served by Emirates’ A380s.
From July 2008, Emirates’ existing daily service to Brisbane via Singapore will be served by the new Boeing 777-300ERs, which offers passengers industry-leading levels of comfort and service in all three cabins.
Sheikh Ahmed added: “The Airbus A380 is a very important aircraft to Emirates. Our first aircraft is the ultra-long range version in a 489 seat, three-class configuration which is ideally suited for Australian flights.”
Emirates currently offers 49 flights every week from Dubai to Australia. This includes double-daily services to Sydney, Melbourne and Perth and a daily basis to Brisbane. One service daily from Sydney operates via Bangkok while one service daily from Melbourne operates via Singapore. The flight to Brisbane is operated via Singapore.
From Dubai, the airline operates five flights weekly to Malta via Larnaca in Cyprus, on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays on the Boeing 777-200. The Malta route gives a convenient connection to outgoing and incoming passengers from Australia and the Far East.