Emirates to use A380 on all London flights

The third daily A380 flight to Gatwick will take the capacity to 3,936 seats per day from Dubai to London.

Emirates’ eight daily flights to London will all be served by the A380 from January 1, 2016, cementing the airline’s status as the largest international A380 operator into the British capital. Courtesy Emirates
Powered by automated translation

Emirates is to use an Airbus A380 on all of its eight daily London flights from January 1, 2016.

The Dubai carrier will complete its clean sweep of A380 London flights with its third daily service to Gatwick.

This will add 259 seats per day each way, according to an Emirates spokesperson, who said that the current capacity from Dubai to London is 3,677 seats and is set to rise to 3,936.

Hubert Frach, Emirates divisional senior vice president, commercial operations west, said that the airline has increased capacity into London by 25 per cent during the past five years.

“This demonstrates the attractiveness of the A380 with its ability to serve customer demand at slot-constrained points without the need for adding another frequency,” he said.

Emirates started deploying the double decker A380 to London in December 2008. It currently has 35 A380 destinations across its network with Copenhagen becoming the 36th from December 1. It operates 119 flights per week from Dubai to the UK.

The airline has been increasing its capacity to a number of destinations recently.

Earlier this week it added a third daily flight to Birmingham, while also adding Madrid to its daily A380 routes, adding 2,900 seats to the Spanish capital per week.

Yesterday, it confirmed a new codeshare agreement with Thailand-based Bangkok Airways, adding a further 14 destinations including Koh Samui and Chiang Mai in Thailand.

Emirates said last week that it would introduce a fourth daily A380 flight to Bangkok from December 1, increasing the seat capacity by 3,570 per week.

The A380 marked its decade in the skies this year, but has failed to win a single order from any new airline customer for two years.

“It’s true the market hasn’t developed as much as we’d have liked,” Airbus chief executive Fabrice Bregier said in April. “This plane was probably launched 10 years too early.”

Emirates president Tim Clark said in May that the airline would adjust its business model should Airbus stop making the A380.

Although Emirates has requested that Airbus make the A380 more fuel efficient, the plane maker said it was not working on changes to the model’s engine.

It did however say that it was in talks with airlines regarding a stretched version of the plane with up to 50 more seats.

ioxborrow@thenational.ae

Follow The National's Business section on Twitter