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Emirates has announced it will ramp up its flight schedule to and from Perth from 1 April, following the reopening of the state’s international borders.
According to the Dubai-based carrier, it will increase its number of weekly flights from three to four as of 1 April, and increase again to daily flights from 1 May, to keep up with steadily increasing demand.
It will operate the flights – EK420 from Dubai to Perth and EK421 from Perth to Dubai – on its fleet of Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
Barry Brown, Emirates divisional vice-president for Australasia said: “Emirates is excited to increase services to Perth as Western Australia’s borders reopen and demand for travel grows by the day.
“We have been busy boosting our operations in response to the resumption of travel. As part of our commitment to Australia, we are playing a role in the recovery of its travel industry, and facilitating a return to normalcy, for our customers to have the freedom to travel again.”
It comes after Western Australia’s borders finally reopened just last week to domestic and international travellers after nearly two years of harsh restrictions.
WA Premier Mark McGowan announced last month that his state will drop quarantine requirements for fully vaccinated interstate and international travellers on 3 March, with anyone aged 16 and over also required to have had their booster shot before entering from interstate.
Border restrictions were initially planned to lift on 5 February, however, McGowan announced that this date would be pushed back due to the Omicron outbreak in the eastern states.
Meanwhile, the rest of Australia dropped its last remaining restrictions on its international borders, allowing tourists to once again visit Australia for the first time in nearly two years on 21 February.
It marked Australia’s final stage of reopening its borders after previously allowing residents and citizens to fly in November last year, before opening to students, backpackers and skilled migrants in December. The federal government progressively increased travel restrictions from late March 2020 as COVID cases rose.
Since then, Emirates has been steadily increasing capacity to and from Australia, and is now operating out of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth.
Last week, Emirates’ flagship Airbus A380 returned to Brisbane for the first time since the beginning of the pandemic and ramped up its flight schedule to daily flights connecting Brisbane and Emirates’ hub of Dubai.
Prior to this, Emirates was operating six times per week into Brisbane, using its fleet of Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
It also comes after the airline last month welcomed the return of its superjumbo on daily flights connecting Melbourne and Dubai and follows the return of its A380 to Sydney in December.
Emirates now operates twice-daily flights between Sydney and Dubai on its A380 fleet.
