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I’ve mentioned before how Emirates is easily the biggest supporter of the Airbus A380 aircraft and it probably wouldn’t be going too far to say that, had Emirates not bought quite so many A380s, Airbus may not still be making the aircraft – around 30% of the Emirates fleet is made up of A380 aircraft (73 in total) so their stake in the A380 project is significant.
We’ve recently been seeing Emirates ramp up its A380 operations to major cities with Düsseldorf and Munich getting all-A380 service from this coming summer, Los Angeles and Dallas seeing more Emirates A380 service than before and even cities like Birmingham (UK) are soon to be served by the Emirates Whale Jet.
I’m reasonably sure that, as things stand, London has more Emirates A380 service than any other city in the world (not counting Dubai…obviously!). With 5 daily flights between Dubai and Heathrow, all of which are served by 3-class Airbus A380 aircraft (no high-density A380 service for Heathrow) and three more A380 flights between Dubai and London Gatwick, it’s hard to claim that London is underserved by Emirates.
But apparently that’s what Emirates thinks!
From 27 March 2016 Emirates is adding a 6th daily flight to its Dubai – London Heathrow route and, although the new flight (EK031/032) will start out being operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, from 1 June 2016 the route will be turned over to an A380.
EK031 DXB 11:30 – 16:10 LHR
EK032 LHR 19:50 – 05:50+1 day DXB
The Onboard Product
If you’re a Business Class flyer and, for some reason, the timings of the new flights work better for you than the timings of the other 5 Heathrow flights, I would hold off flying ’till the A380 comes on-line (if possible) or take a slightly less convenient flight.
The Business Class cabin in the Emirates 777-300ER comes in a 2-3-2 layout….
Seat map from ExpertFlyer
….and only has an “angled flat” seat – hardly the amazing premium cabin product we’ve come to expect from a Middle Eastern carrier.
Business Class seats on an Emirates 777-300ER – Courtesy of Luke Lai via Flickr
The Emirates A380 Business Class product it a much better option:
Business Class seats on an Emirates A380 – Courtesy of Emirates
First Class passengers don’t have much to worry about (do they ever?!) as both aircraft types come with the Emirates Suite product.
Economy Class passengers are another group who should try to stay clear of the Boeing 777-300.
While the Emirates A380 offers passengers in the Economy cabin seats that are 18″ wide, the seats in the 777-300 are a much tighter 17″ wide….and yes, that 1 inch does make a lot of difference.
Bottom Line
Who knew that enough people want to travel between Dubai and London that it merits flying 9 (nine!) Airbus A380s between the two cities every day? I certainly didn’t!
When an airline adds more capacity to a route I normally make a comment along the lines of how more capacity is good for finding award seats and how it’s good for keeping prices down…but I think we’re long past that point on the Dubai-London routes.
If you couldn’t find the award space you were looking for with eight A380s flying daily between the two cities I doubt one more aircraft is going to make much difference!
The question now is: What will Emirates run out of first, A380s or cities to serve with A380s? 🙂
[…] a seemingly relentless deployment of its Whale Jets through 2016. This year alone we’ve seen Heathrow get a 6th daily A380 flight, the Munich & Düsseldorf routes go all-A380, Los Angeles and Amsterdam getting second A380 […]