As reported on ittn.ie on Monday 9th January, when Emirates commenced its three-class A330-200 daily Dublin – Dubai service, the airline’s bookings are producing 90+% load factors for the first few months and a B777 may be introduced “fairly soon” and quicker than the planned 18 months time – but President Tim Clark also referred to going double-daily.
“Most of our European routes have gone double-daily within three to four years,” he said. “There are approximately 80,000 people of Irish descent in Australia, a key market for Emirates, and more than 70 passengers on the 237-seat inaugural flight came from bookings in Australia. In addition, there are around 5,000 Irish nationals in the UAE.”
As reported by ITTN last month, the 237-seat A330 may be very quickly replaced by a 258-seat or 267-seat A340, but a B777 would provide between 290 and 364 seats in a three-class configuration, depending on specific aircraft type used. Emirates currently has 99 B777s in service and has another 97 on order (not including options).
ITTN understands that the Emirates staff in Dublin had a very busy Christmas period getting ready for the start-up of the service (indeed, they kindly changed a Paris-Dubai-Perth booking for us on Wednesday 28th December!) and we wish Margaret, Eileen, Anita and all the team (there are now 25 staff in Ireland between the Harcourt Road office and at Terminal 2) all the best for the future.
