Emirates

Emirates has announced that it will be launching new daily nonstop flights to Durban, South Africa effective December 1st 2008. A two class configured Airbus A 330-200 will be used for the service and will be the airline's third South African destination after JNB and CPT. By launching these new flights, it will provide EK with a monopoly on offering long haul flights out of DUR to India, Europe and the Far East via its DXB hub which it hopes will lure passengers away from flying long haul to their final destination via JNB or CPT.

The flight timings are as follows:

EK 774 Dep DXB 0445 Arr DUR 1125
EK 775 Dep DUR 1315 Arr DXB 2345

Comments:

EK has clearly used some effective lobbying tactics to get rights to fly daily to CPT and DUR all within a few months time. Their exclusive sponsorship rights with the governing body of soccer i.e. FIFA for the upcoming World Cup 2010 in South Africa would have definitely helped pushed its case with the authorities. But on the whole, by being the only airline to offer long haul flights out of DUR (a niche market), EK has a lot to gain with traffic particularly bound via DXB to India, UK and the Far East.