Emirates Prepares for Next Expansion From NZ

Emirates Prepares for Next Expansion From New Zealand

Emirates will boost its capacity on its daily Auckland-Brisbane-Dubai route by 672 seats a week each way from the New Year.

From January 2, the airline will replace the current Airbus A340-500 operation with the latest Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, complete with new lie-flat business class seating and private suites in first class, as well as digital widescreens with 1,200 channels of on-screen information, communication and entertainment.

It is the airline’s second capacity expansion on New Zealand routes within a year following the same aircraft change on its daily Auckland-Melbourne-Dubai service in July.

Emirates will now be flying 10,857 seats in each direction per week across its four daily New Zealand services, including the impressive A380 superjumbo on the daily Auckland-Sydney-Dubai service and a Boeing 777-300ER on the daily Christchurch-Dubai service via Sydney and Bangkok. In 2009-10, Emirates carried approximately 9.95% of total transTasman passengers.

“The change to the Boeing 777 on the route through Melbourne has been very well accepted and we expect to see the new aircraft become equally popular on the service through Brisbane,” said Emirates New Zealand manager Chris Lethbridge. “This is always a favourite route for Emirates customers and it is a real plus to have more capacity as well as the very latest product offering.”

The Boeing 777-300ER will operate in a three class configuration with eight first class, 42 business class and 304 economy class seats. The aircraft type already operates on Emirates’ daily service out of Christchurch.

Among its current fleet of 153 aircraft, Emirates now has 53 Boeing 777-300ERs, with a further 48 on order.

ENDS

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