Emirates Announces Capacity Increase to St Petersburg

Emirates Announces Capacity Increase to St Petersburg

9 September – New Zealand travellers will have even more reason to visit St Petersburg, following an announcement from Emirates reinforcing its commitment to Russia. Emirates announced overnight the upgrade of the aircraft servicing the St Petersburg route to a Boeing 777-300ER, increasing capacity and offering an enhanced onboard experience.

Six weekly EK175/176 flights, from Dubai to St Petersburg, will be operated with an Emirates Boeing 777-300ER from 25 October 2015, instead of an Airbus 330-200. The up-gauge will be applied to a seventh flight per week on the 1 December 2015. Kiwi travellers bound for St Petersburg will have a direct connection at Dubai when travelling on the three daily A380 services from Auckland or daily Boeing 777-300 from Christchurch.

By replacing the A330-200 with the Boeing 777-300ER, Emirates will be adding a capacity increase of 50% to the route, which launched in November 2011. The new aircraft will also introduce the Emirates First Class Suite, a first for the route, plus 42 lie-flat Business Class seats and 310 spacious Economy Class seats.

As the only airline to offer First Class Suites from St Petersburg, Emirates is bringing a new level of comfort and quality to the market, previously unavailable from St Petersburg on a commercial airline.

“Since 2011, when Emirates launched flights to and from St Petersburg, we have carried over 500,000 passengers on the route. Counting these figures alongside our double-daily flights to Moscow, takes the total to over 3.6million passengers travelling on Emirates to and from Russia in the 12 years of operation, making it an important market not only for Emirates, but for Dubai as a destination,” said Thierry Aucoc, Emirates’ Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations – Europe and Russian Federation.

“Operating these flights to and from St Petersburg on a 777-300ER brings consistency to the Russian customer. Whether travelling from St Petersburg or Moscow, they will be confident that the level of experience they receive is in line with what is expected from Emirates.”

On board the Emirates Boeing 777-300ER, passengers in all three cabins can enjoy more than 2,000 channels of the latest movies, TV shows and music from around the world on the award-winning iceinflight entertainment system, all while enjoying specially created gourmet cuisine served by Emirates’ multi-lingual cabin crew. As with all Emirates flights, passengers travelling on the route will be able to accumulate Skywards miles and benefit from a generous baggage allowance of 30kg in Economy Class, 40kg in Business Class and 50kg in First Class.

Emirates’ flight EK175 departs Dubai International Airport at 09:20 and arrives in St Petersburg at14:35. The outbound flight EK176 departs from St Petersburg at 16:35 and arrives in Dubai at 23:45.

From Dubai, Russian passengers are able to easily connect to Emirates’ vast network of destinations in Asia and beyond, including the new service to Bali, the Thai island of Phuket and exciting cities in Australia. From Asia, Middle East, Australia and Africa, St Petersburg is just a short stop in Dubai away, offering a convenient option for business and leisure passengers to connect with Russia.

ENDS

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