Emirates is introducing an additional 5X-weekly service to London Heathrow (LHR) during the forthcoming northern winter season, increasing capacity to and from the UK airport to record levels.
The airline plans to operate Boeing 777-300ER flights from Dubai International Airport (DXB) on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays from Oct. 31 through March 30, 2024. Slots for the service have been leased from Cathay Pacific Airways.
Emirates already operates six daily Airbus A380 flights to LHR, offering 43,484 two-way weekly seats at present. The addition of the 777-300ER service will increase capacity to 47,024 seats.
Analysis of data provided by OAG Schedules Analyser shows that this will be the highest number of weekly seats to and from LHR offered by Emirates, beating the previous record of 46,148 seats set in October 2021.
“This temporary service will meet market demand during the busy winter season and offer customers more travel choices,” the carrier says in a statement.
Overall, Emirates’ winter 2023-24 season schedule to and from London will comprise 47 weekly flights to LHR, 21X-weekly to London Gatwick Airport and 14X-weekly to London Stansted Airport, taking Dubai-London capacity to around 78,200 weekly seats. The airline’s all-time highest London capacity was 78,804 seats in August 2019.
The carrier currently serves the UK with 126 weekly flights, including a 3X-daily A380 service to Manchester; double-daily service to Birmingham, including a daily A380 service; daily 777-300ER service to Newcastle; and a daily A380 flight to Glasgow.
The new 5X-weekly service to LHR will depart DXB at 1:20 p.m. and arrive in the UK capital at 5:20 p.m. The return flight departs at 8:15 p.m. and arrives in Dubai at 7:15 a.m. the following day.