Emirates Airline's inaugural non-stop flight to Boston took off on Monday morning as the Dubai flag carrier continues to aggressively expand its network into the US.
Flight EK237 took off from Dubai International at 9.45am and was expected to touch down at Boston’s Logan International at 3.15pm local time.
The new route to Boston is the eighth in Emirates’ rapidly expanding list of US destinations. The airline currently runs direct flights between its Dubai hub and Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington.
Last month Emirates announced it would start daily flights to Chicago on August 5 as the airline continues to attempt to cash in on the US’s high-yielding corporate traffic and to challenge US airlines such as American and United.
In addition to carrying passengers, the flight to Boston will carry up to 17 tonnes of cargo.
Emirates’ expansion in the US mirrors that of Abu Dhabi-based Etihad Airways.
Earlier this month Etihad launched a second daily service on its Abu Dhabi-New York JFK route and it plans to begin a daily service to Los Angeles from June, and a thrice-weekly service to Dallas-Fort Worth from December.
Etihad’s other current US destinations are Chicago, Miami (cargo) and Washington.
Last year, Dubai received 586,000 travellers from North America and the emirate is expecting double digit growth in visitor numbers in 2014.
The US is a major business partner of the UAE and its largest single export market in the Middle East and North Africa.
In 2012, US exports to the UAE reached US$22.5 billion, an increase of 42 per cent compared with 2011.
lbarnard@thenational.ae
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