Emirates to Bring New Travel Options to Phuket

United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier Emirates Airline is to inaugurate flights between Dubai and Phuket this winter opening air services to its second destination in Thailand. The fast growing carrier is to introduce a daily Airbus A330-200 link to Thailand’s biggest island, located in the Andaman Sea, from December 10, 2012. The widebodied aircraft will provide a three-class product on the route.

“Emirates is looking forward to the launch of our non-stop, daily service to Phuket, which will be just in time for the holiday season. We have always had a strong affiliation with Thailand and have been operating flights to Bangkok since 1990,” said Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline. In 2011 an estimated 457,000 O&D passengers flew between the UAE and Thailand with around 1.13 million travellers believed to have accessed the Thai capital from or to Emirates’ global network during the calendar year. Excluding Dubai, the main traffic flows are from/to Hong Kong, Sydney, Manchester, Paris and Hamburg.

Phuket will become the 15th route launch for the airline this year and the second in South East Asia following on from Ho Chi Minh City in June. Emirates Holidays, the airline’s tour operating arm, will offer tailor made holidays to Phuket, that include a selection of five, four and three star hotels.

“Thailand is an important market for Emirates, we currently operate four daily flights between Dubai and Bangkok, including one with our Airbus A380 aircraft. We are confident that Phuket will prove a popular destination for our passengers, especially those from the UAE, Middle East and Europe,” added Clark.

As mentioned, alongside the UAE and wider Middle East market, Emirates is expected to pick up a large amount of traffic for the new route via its expanding European network. In 2011, an estimated 830,000 passengers travelled to/from the popular leisure destination from the continent and our analysis highlights the top ten largest point-to-point traffic flows during the last calendar year. Phuket is a very popular tourist destination for travellers across Europe and the offering of a range of tour packages will support the development of the service.

There are currently only limited non-stop services to Phuket from Europe. Russian carrier Transaero Airlines is the only company offering flights to Phuket this summer with a link from its Moscow Domodedovo base, although seasonal winter services will be resumed by Aeroflot Russian Airlines from Moscow Sheremetyevo and Condor from Frankfurt. Last winter airberlin also provided scheduled links from Berlin and Munich, Blue Panorama Airlines from Milan and XL Airways France from Paris.