Emirates

Emirates has confirmed that its first long haul route with the Airbus A 380 will be to JFK Airport in New York City. EK will use the A 380 on this sector from October 1st 2008 and will replace the B 773ER currently being used for EK 201/202. This new development possibly ends all speculation as to why EK suspended its 3rd daily JFK flight via HAM as EK's 3 class A 380 which will be used to JFK seats 489 pax in a 3 class configuration i.e. nearly double the capacity of its A 345. The 2 A 345s used for DXB-HAM-JFK will be re-directed for Perth which will see double daily A 345s flying to the city from March 30th 2008.

In other EK related news, the airline has been granted additional traffic rights to Italy from Summer 2008. As a result, capacity and frequencies will be increased to both FCO-Rome and MXP-Milan by the airline. From July 2008, EK will fly a daily nonstop 3 class A 332 to MXP and FCO will see a daily 3 class B 773A. From Rome however, 3 of those daily B 773s continue onwards to NCE-Nice.

As far as its Australian expansion plans are concerned for 2008, the main highlights are as follows :

BNE - double daily flights to start from Oct 26th 2008 i.e. new daily nonstop service using an A 345.

EK 434 DXB 0305 - 2320 BNE
EK 435 BNE 0225 - 1125 DXB

PER - from Oct 26th, capacity will be increased from double daily A 345s to daily A 345 + daily B 773ER.

EK 420 DXB 0235 - 1820 PER
EK 421 PER 2330 - 0545+1 DXB