Emirates Airline unveiled plans to grow the number of flights across its network by 14 per cent in 2009. This year, the Dubai-based carrier will add 18 new passenger aircraft to its fleet, increasing seating capacity by 14 per cent and enabling it to start new routes as well as increase frequencies on many existing routes. It will also expand cargo capacity by 17 per cent.
The additional frequencies will affford passengers a greater choice of flights, more frequent connections with their target markets and shorter, more convenient connection times.
Emirates currently has a fleet of 129 wide-bodied aircraft. By the end of the 2008-09 financial year, that figure will stand at 132, including four superjumbo Airbus A380s. The carrier will welcome a further seven A380s in fiscal year 2009-10, as well as 10 Boeing 777-300ER, one 777-200LR and one Boeing 777 freighter.
Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, chairman and chief executive, Emirates Airline and Group, said: "Next year is not going to be an easy ride for the airline industry. We have prepared the best we can for the challenges we foresee, but we also see it as a time of opportunity. This year, with our significant capacity increase, will be a year of consolidation for us, with fewer new routes launched than in previous years.
Emirates' fastest growing markets are Africa and the Middle East. The airline recently added a second daily flight to Lagos. It will also introduce services from Dubai to Durban flights, South Africa on October 1.
Last month, Emirates announced a vast Middle East expansion plan, taking the number of seats in the region to 50,000 on 180 flights a week. Additional flights to Amman, Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait and Damascus were started recently.
Emirates has added 32 weekly flights to its existing Indian services since November.
As new aircraft come online for both Los Angeles flights and San Francisco flights - Emirates' newest routes, launched in October and December - will go from thrice weekly to daily from May.
There is increased capacity to Australia, with additional daily flights to Brisbane and Melbourne, taking the total number of flights a week to 63. Later this year, a third daily flights to Sydney will be added. In February, Emirates became the first carrier to operate commercial A380 flights to New Zealand with the launch of its Dubai-Sydney-Auckland flights.
Plans are also afoot to deploy superjumbos on Dubai-Seoul and Dubai-Singapore flights in November and December respectively. The first A380 flight between Dubai and Seoul's Incheon International Airport will depart in November, while the Singapore service will start in December and initially run four times weekly.
In Europe, Emirates has already embarked on an expansion programme. In recent months it has increased services on the Larnaca-Malta route to seven times weekly, commenced double daily flights into Milan, increased Istanbul services to 11 flights a week, and Nice flights to five times weekly. Second daily services into Moscow and Athens are also planned.
In total, the additional capacity will see more than 8,635 seats and around 600 tonnes of cargo capacity added to the Emirates fleet.
Established in October 1985 with flights to Karachi and Mumbai, Emirates Airline today directly serves 101 cities in 61 countries. Last October, the Emirates dedicated Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport opened. In 2008, 22 million Emirates passengers passed through Dubai International Airport - an 11 per cent increase on 2007.
