Emirates Holiday Packages with Irish Tour Operator?

In an exclusive interview with Irish Travel Trade News, Laurie Berryman, Emirates’ Vice President – UK & Ireland, revealed that, within two hours of going on sale, seats were booked on the first 10 flights of its new Dublin – Dubai service, which starts on 9^th January 2012. Emirates may also link up with an Irish tour operator to offer holiday packages.

“Our daily Dublin – Dubai service will have 183 seats in Economy, 42 in Business, and 12 in First Class,” he said. “and our introductory fares are very competitive.

“Less than two hours after seats went on sale we already had bookings on the first 10 flights – including six on the very first flight. Yes, I know Irish Travel eNews included news of Emirates’ new route the previous day!

“We will be starting the service at a good time of year – when there is business traffic, winter sun breaks and an early Easter – and we expect to achieve an overall load factor of 80% for the January – March 2012 quarter.

“The 237-seat A330-200 is the smallest aircraft in our fleet (they are all wide-bodied) and we may progress the size up, in perhaps two or three years time, to our largest aircraft, a B777 with 354 seats. We tend to start new routes with a daily service and increase aircraft size rather than flight frequency.

“Yes, comparisons will be made with Etihad, but there’s room in the market for both of us. We go onwards to some different destinations, for example to Perth in Australia, to New Zealand – we took many of the Rugby World Cup teams – and three times daily to Hong Kong. We expect 65-75% of ex-Dublin traffic to be for destinations beyond Dubai.

“Holiday packages? Yes, we will work with tour operators – we may extend the Emirates Tours UK programme operated by Dnata Travel (UK) or we may link up with Irish tour operators.”