DHAKA: Emirates will expand its A380 network to 28 destinations, when it launches a daily A380 service to Mumbai International Airport on 21st July.

EK 500 and EK 501 between Dubai and Mumbai will be up-scaled to a three-class A380 aircraft, representing with a capacity increase of 2,127 seats per week in each direction. 

This offers passengers flying to India from key destinations in North America and Europe the chance to experience Emirates’ hugely popular flagship aircraft on this route. 

In addition, Emirates will deploy larger Boeing 777 aircraft to Delhi and Hyderabad to serve growing demand. Delhi will have 980 additional one-way weekly seats while Hyderabad will increase its capacity to add 672 one-way weekly seats.

A combined total of 3,779 one-way weekly seats will be deployed on Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad through these aircraft upgrades. This follows the recent bilateral discussions between the governments of Dubai and India, which provided a phased increase of 11,000 seats for Dubai carriers.

“Emirates has been serving India since our founding year in 1985, and it is our largest market today which we serve with 185 flights each week. We look forward to working with the new Government in India to grow India’s economy through enhanced aviation connectivity and to realize India’s ambition to grow its international aviation market to 85 million passengers by 2020,” said Ahmed Khoory, Emirates’ Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations-West Asia & Indian Ocean.

India's National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) recently modeled the impact of Emirates up-gauging daily services to Mumbai from Boeing 777s to an Airbus A380. The annual incremental economic benefit from up-gauging one service is US$8.3 million in additional GDP per return flight and the creation and support of over 1,000 jobs.

BDST: 1947 HRS, JUN 03, 2014