Emirates will expand its A380 network to 28 destinations, when it launches a daily A380 service to Mumbai International Airport on 21 July. EK 500 and EK 501 between Dubai and Mumbai will be up-scaled to a three-class A380 aircraft, representing with a capacity increase of 2,127 seats per week in each direction. This offers passengers flying from India, the chance to experience Emirates’ hugely popular flagship aircraft on this route.
“Air transport is an important economic driver. It facilitates trade and tourism, and has a multiplier effect through direct and indirect job creation. Emirates has been serving India since our founding year in 1985. We look forward to working with the new Government in India to grow India’s economy through enhanced aviation connectivity and to realize India’s ambition to grow its international aviation market to 85 million passengers by 2020,” said Essa Sulaiman Ahmad, Vice President, India & Nepal, Emirates Airline.
In addition, Emirates will deploy larger Boeing 777 aircraft to Delhi and Hyderabad to serve growing demand. Delhi will have 980 additional one-way weekly seats while Hyderabad will increase its capacity to add 672 one-way weekly seats.
“India is Emirates largest market, where we offer up to 185 flights each week. We have long wanted to operate our iconic A380 to the country and thanks to the additional capacity recently granted, now we are able to. We recently flew one of our newly delivered A380’s to the Indian Airshow in Hyderabad where hundreds of visitors enjoyed touring the plane, enquiring about when we were going to start flying it to India. I’m pleased that we can finally confirm that we are, and we look forward to strong demand for this flight,” Ahmad added.
A combined total of 3,779 one-way weekly seats will be deployed on Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad through these aircraft upgrades. This follows the recent bilateral discussions between the governments of Dubai and India, which provided a phased increase of 11,000 seats for Dubai carriers.
