FLEET DEVELOPMENTS: Emirates To Offer Three Daily A380 Flights to London Heathrow

Emirates Airline has announced it will introduce an Airbus A380 on the third of its five daily flights between Dubai and London Heathrow. The Super Jumbo will replace a Boeing 777-300ER on the carrier’s EK029/030 service from January 24, 2012, adding further capacity on what is one of the airline’s busiest routes. The carrier, the largest operator of the A380, first launched services to London with the type in December 2008 on its EK01/02 flight. A second daily rotation was introduced from June last year on its EK03/04 service.

The United Arab Emirates operator carried an estimated 428,000 O&D passengers on the route from Dubai to London Heathrow last year (a 45 per cent share of the total O&D traffic), although when you look at the wider global network of the carrier the number of passengers travelling from London Heathrow and transiting in Dubai increases this figure above 1.2 million. In terms of O&D markets, London Heathrow is actually Emirates’ second largest behind Tehran (546,000 O&D passengers), with Mumbai, Karachi, Bangkok, Delhi, Dhaka, Doha, Moscow Domodedovo and Kuwait City making up the top ten.

“Given the popularity of Emirates’ A380s, I know this news will be well received by our customers flying between London Heathrow, Dubai and beyond. As these magnificent aircraft continue to join our fleet, we can offer more seats and choice in and out of high density points, while enabling a greater number of passengers to benefit from the Emirates’ A380 experience,” said Salem Obaidalla, Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, Europe & Russian Federation, Emirates Airline.

The third A380 service from Heathrow is another major investment for Emirates in the UK, where it operates 105 weekly flights from six gateways: London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Birmingham, Manchester, Newcastle and Glasgow. In September last year, Manchester, which is now a triple daily service, became Emirates’ second UK gateway to be served by the Super Jumbo. Emirates’ operates 17 A380s as part of a wider fleet of 162 aircraft. This is set to grow significantly in the years ahead with a burgeoning orderbook that has been added to it’s the recent days during the Dubai Air Show with a new commitment for up to 70 additional Boeing 777-300ERs.

The $18 billion deal (at list prices) comprises a firm order for 50 aircraft and options for 20 more and will enable the Dubai-based carrier to upgrade many of its current A330-200 routes to larger capacity aircraft, boost frequency and introduced additional routes in the years ahead.