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Emirates has today relaunched its daily service from Sydney to Christchurch using its A380s – the only flight across the ditch to use the super jumbo.
The two-year-old A380, A6-EVS, departed the NSW capital at 10:01am as flight EK412 and touched down on the South Island at 2:39pm. It will later continue on to Dubai.
The airline on Monday also restarted its daily Melbourne-Singapore-Dubai service as EK404/405 using its Boeing 777-300ERs.
“Our Melbourne-Singapore-Dubai service will offer travellers a strong connection opportunity between two global travel hubs, providing access to substantial leisure and business activities, plus fantastic onwards links to and through Dubai,” said Barry Brown, divisional VP Australasia at Emirates.
“We also welcome back our Sydney-Christchurch service, a favourite for travellers between New Zealand and Australia. As the only A380 experience between the sister countries across the Trans-Tasman, passengers will be able to take advantage of Emirates’ signature experience, including a superior First and Business Class offering, plus our highly popular Premium Economy cabin, one of the best in the air.”
The reintroduction of Sydney-Christchurch and Melbourne-Singapore-Dubai routes are part of Emirates’ push to return to 100 per cent pre-pandemic capacity by mid-2023.
“Adding a third daily service to Sydney and Melbourne will offer over 500,000 additional seats to and from Australia in a year,” said Brown in January.
“To have the two cities operating back at pre-pandemic frequencies is a phenomenal milestone in our restoration of Australia [sic] capacity and testament to our long-standing commitment to flying Down Under.”
The UAE-based flag carrier received a leg up in its plans this month when the ACCC ruled it could continue to coordinate its flight schedules with Qantas in a deal that began in 2013 and was slated to end on 31 March this year. The interim authorisation was granted last week, with Qantas and Emirates seeking to extend the agreement for another five years.
Qantas CEO Alan Joyce in 2021 called the partnership one of “the most significant” in aviation.
“The international aviation market will take years to fully recover so close collaboration between airline partners is going to be more important than ever,” he said.
