Aerospace

Emirates' flight capacity to London increases

Posted 31 March 2016

Emirates today unveiled plans to boost capacity to London with the addition of a tenth daily flight to London Gatwick airport starting 1st October 2016, with the new service - Emirates' fourth daily flight to Gatwick - complementing its six daily services to Heathrow and taking the airline's total weekly services to the city to 70.

The Dubai-London Gatwick service will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in a three-class configuration, with eight Private Suites in First Class, 42 lie flat seats in Business Class and 310 seats in Economy Class.

"Emirates started serving London Gatwick in July 1987; since then over 10 million passengers have travelled on the route. As a global hub for finance, business and tourism, London attracts travellers from all over the world," commented Hubert Frach, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, West. "With British expats forming the largest western community in Dubai, it’s not surprising to witness continued strong demand for travel between Dubai and the five cities we currently serve in the UK," added Frach.

“We are delighted with Emirates’ decision to introduce a fourth daily service from Gatwick to Dubai. The new service follows the strong performance of Emirates’ Dubai routes from Gatwick, with increasing demand from both business and leisure passengers” stated Stewart Wingate, Gatwick Airport’s CEO. “Emirates passengers expect the exceptional service and world-class facilities that Gatwick now provides. This fourth daily service to Dubai complements Gatwick’s growing network of long haul connections with over 50 global destinations flown to this year alone,” added Wingate.

Emirates’ flights have multinational cabin crew, including over 2,000 British nationals.

Starting 1 October 2016, EK 023 will depart Dubai at 0950hrs, arriving in London at 1430hrs. The return flight, EK 024, will leave London at 1650hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0240hrs the next day. The early morning arrival will enable seamless connectivity to key destinations in the Middle East, West Asia and the Far East.

With an additional daily cargo capacity of nearly 20 tonnes in each direction, Emirates SkyCargo helps connect customers in the UK with cities around the world. Top exports include perishables, construction equipment, electronics and automotive and aircraft spare parts. SkyCargo also operates a dedicated freighter service to London Heathrow twice a week.

Based on a study conducted by Frontier Economics, Emirates’ current operations in the UK have an economic impact of more than £2 billion on the UK’s GDP and support over 29,700 jobs in the country.