Emirates Adds Airbus A380 Services To 4 Routes

Emirates has more Airbus A380 aircraft than any other airline….and it shows! Recent schedule changes from Emirates have seen the airline replacing a number of its Boeing 777-300 aircraft with the larger Airbus A380.

Emirates Adds Airbus A380 Services to Birmingham (UK)

For UK-based travelers the more interesting of the changes will be the addition of an A380 service between Dubai and Birmingham from 27 March 2016.

As things stand, Emirates runs 3 daily services between Dubai and Birmingham and all are served by 2-Class Boeing 777-300 aircraft (no First Class for the Midlanders) but, from 27 March, flights EK39/40 will be served by an Airbus A380.

The new schedule will look like this:

EK41 DXB 03:20 – 07:50 BHX (Daily 777-300 service)
EK42 BHX 09:40 – 19:40 DXB (Daily 777-300 service)

EK39 DXB 07:35 – 12:20 BHX (Daily A380 service)
EK40 BHX 14:20 – 00:35 DXB + 1 Day (Daily A380 service)

EK37 DXB 15:00 – 19:35 BHX (Daily 777-300 service)
EK38 BHX 21:20 – 07:15 DXB + 1 Day (Daily 777-300 service)

The A380 that will serve Birmingham will have the 615-seat high-density configuration I took a look at last month (Inside the Emirates 615-Seat Airbus A380 – Is It Really That Bad?) and will see the flight’s capacity rise by 188 seats per day in each direction.

Not only will there be a significant increase in the number of Economy Class seats on the route but Business Class passengers will also see a rise in the number of seats for sale with the A380 adding 16 Business Class seats in either direction.

Overall this is an 8% rise in capacity for Emirates on their DXB-BHX route.

Economy Class cabin in the Emirates 2-Class A380

Other Routes Getting A380 Service

Birmingham isn’t alone in getting the Airbus A380 treatment from Emirates.

Dubai – Taipei: From 1 May 2016 a 2-class A380 will replace the 2-class 777-300 that currently operates the route.

This is another significant rise in capacity for Emirates with 23% more seats available on this route from 1 May.

Dubai – Barcelona: From 1 June 2016 Barcelona will be an all-A380 route for Emirates as it replaces the 777-300ER that currently operates flight EK187/188 with a 3-class Airbus A380. The other Dubai-Barcelona flight (EK185/186) is already served by an Emirates A380.

The 777-300 being replaced on this has a capacity of 360 passengers while the 3-class A380 replacing it will be able to carry up to 517 passengers so, once again, Emirates is raising the capacity on one of its routes quite significantly.

Dubai – Prague: From 1 May 2016 a 3-class Airbus A380 will replace the 3-class Boeing 777-300ER that currently operates on the route.

Just as with the Dubai-Barcelona route, the 360-seat Boeing 777-300 is being replaced with a 517-seat Airbus giving Emirates a staggering 43% increase in seat capacity on the route.

Prague – Image courtesy of Roman Boed via Flickr

Bottom Line

While the US airlines are talking about showing capacity restraint in an attempt to keep fares strong it looks like Emirates is doing its best to open up as much capacity as it can.

Clearly Emirates believes it can make good use of the A380s on these routes but I’m struggling to see how (not that I’m complaining!). Does the Dubai Prague route really need a 43% increase in capacity?

Emirates is already the only full-service carrier to operate the Dubai-Prague market with a non-stop service and its competition seems to be low-cost carriers like SmartWings and FlyDubai. But when Emirates is charging $864 for a round trip booking…..

….and the low cost carriers are charging as little as $270 for flights on the same dates….

…it leaves me wondering how Emirates expects to fill its whale jet.

Still, that’s a problem for Emirates and not for the consumers. I’m delighted to see more A380 flying in/out of Europe as the less capacity discipline airlines show the better prices consumers should see. With such significant capacity increases to/from three European cities we should see some very good sales ex-Europe next year – I’ll keep you posted.