Emirates Now Offering All-A380 Service in Auckland

News Release, 2 October 2013

Emirates Now Offering All-A380 Service in Auckland

Auckland has today become the first airport outside Emirates’ Dubai hub to have three scheduled Airbus A380 aircraft on the ground at one time, with the airline introducing the double-decker aircraft on its daily Dubai route via Brisbane.

Emirates is the only airline operating the state-of-the-art A380 into Auckland on regular scheduled services – and from today all three of its daily flights will be A380s.

The change on the Brisbane route from the current Boeing 777-300ER operation to an A380 flight will add a further 135 seats in each direction each day on this service.

The move follows the same upscaling on the Auckland-Melbourne-Dubai route last October, and the introduction of an A380 on the Auckland-Sydney-Dubai route in February 2009.

Outside of Dubai, which has the world’s first, purpose built A380 concourse, no other airport on the network will have as many Emirates A380s at one time as Auckland.

Emirates will fly 10,269 seats in each direction on its Auckland A380 services.

“We have had burgeoning demand on the Auckland-Brisbane-Dubai route from both business and leisure travellers and we are absolutely confident that the popular A380 will further expand this growing market,” said Emirates’ Vice President Australasia, Bryan Banston. “We will be supporting tourism and trade with the added capacity.

“In 2009 we had confidence that the New Zealand market would support these great aircraft and the excellent product that is inherent in these flights – the fact that here we are in 2013 welcoming our third daily A380 demonstrates how well placed that confidence was and underscores Emirates’ commitment to New Zealand.”

Emirates, which started flying to New Zealand just over 10 years ago, has significantly grown its capacity into and out of New Zealand in recent years. From this October, it will have 1821 seats a day in each direction, compared with 1234 at the beginning of 2009.

In addition to the three daily Auckland flights, Emirates also operates a daily Boeing 777-300ER service through Christchurch.

From Auckland, Emirates offers A380 service all the way through to cities such as London, Manchester, Paris, Rome, Amsterdam and Moscow plus Zurich from January 2014 and Barcelona from February 2014.

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Emirates is the largest A380 operator in the world with 37 now in its fleet and 53 on order. Emirates A380s have carried 18 million passengers on 20,000 round trip flights since the airline’s A380 operations commenced with Dubai-New York flights five years ago.

Passengers in the First Class cabin can freshen up in one of two on-board Shower Spas and join with Business Class travellers in the On-Board Lounge where they can enjoy complimentary beverages and canapés.

For flight information and bookings for Emirates’ new daily Auckland-Brisbane-Dubai A380 service, contact a travel agent or visit www.emirates.com/nz

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