Emirates will begin its Ramadan service on May 5, coinciding with the predicted beginning of the holy month.
Throughout the month of Ramadan, it is expected that the airline will serve 1 million dates to its customers during both iftar and suhoor. That includes service both on board and on the ground in Dubai.
Other elements of the airline's Ramadan service include iftar meals served on board and relevant programming on the in-flight entertainment system.
Customers who are breaking their fast on board a flight will be offered iftar boxes, containing a nutritional meal. The boxes are made up of couscous salad and grilled chicken or moudardara (lentils with rice and caramelised onion) and roasted chicken, sandwiches, spinach fatayer or tomato and onion fatayer, assorted sweets, dates, laban and water.
It is expected that more than 150,000 iftar boxes will be served during the holy month, and the menus will be updated half-way through Ramadan.
The Ramadan service will be available to passengers across all cabin classes on selected Emirates flights that coincide with iftar times, including flights to and from the Gulf region, as well as flights catering to Umrah groups travelling to Jeddah and Medina during the month.
During Ramadan, cold meals will be served in lieu of a hot one on all flights to Jeddah and Medina, including Umrah day flights.
When to fast on board
To make sure that fasting times are correct in mid-air, Emirates uses a tool to calculate the correct timings for imsak (the time to commence fasting) and iftar while in-flight.
The calculation is made using the aircraft’s longitude, latitude and altitude, and passengers will be informed of the iftar time by the captain.
Ramadan entertainment
Special programming will also be added to the airline's Ice in-flight entertainment system from May. This includes religious animated series The Prophets; informative programmes such as Ramadan in the Islamic World, Al Alam Bayn Fotour wa Sohour and Men Raheeq Al Iman; as well as Khawater Ramadaneya, a programme based on the poems of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid, Vice President and Ruler of Dubai.
There will also be Arabic audiobooks including Ahmad Al Shugairi's Thoughts of a Young Man and Sultan Al-Mousa's The Perfect Woman and Arabic programmes such as Hala Kazem and 3x1 have also been added.
