Today, UAE carrier Emirates revealed that it is to ramp up its services to and from the United States. The increase will see new services readded to the schedule, alongside increased frequencies to existing destinations over the coming months.
Its been almost ten months since Emirates was forced to ground its global network as the UAE government sought to deal with the spread of the COVID-19 virus. Since the airline was allowed to resume services, it has slowly resumed routes where demand exists. In the summer, it hopes to operate its full pre-crisis network, albeit with a reduced frequency.
Resuming United States flights
As part of its route resumptions, Emirates today revealed that the United States would soon benefit from far more flights. According to the carrier, it is set to add three destinations to its current schedule. First up will be Seattle, with non-stop services resuming on February 1st. The airline will fly to the west coast city four times weekly using a Boeing 777-300ER. Later this month, rival Qatar is set to launch its own Seattle flights.
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The next batch of route resumptions will come on March 2nd when the carrier resumes Dallas and San Francisco services. These flights will be operated four times per week and three times per week, respectively. The airline will use a two-class Boeing 777-200LR for the route, only featuring business class and economy.
Upping the frequency elsewhere
In addition to the route resumptions to Dallas, San Francisco, and Seattle, Emirates is also planning to up its capacity on other routes in the United States. Specifically, from February 1st, Emirates will start flying to New York’s JFK Airport twice a day. Meanwhile, from the same date, the airline’s connection to Los Angeles International will become daily. Emirates points out that passengers can enjoy seamless connections across the US thanks to its codeshare partners Alaska Airlines and JetBlue.
Adding capacity to South America
It isn’t just North America that is benefiting from the increase in frequencies from Emirates. With its US announcement, the airline additionally revealed that its connection to Sao Paulo would increase from four times a week to five from February 5th.
Since it resumed flights, Emirates has resumed operations to 114 destinations across six continents. In August, Simple Flying reported that Emirates aims to have resumed flights to all of its pre-pandemic networks this summer. With 143 destinations on the old route network, Emirates is 80% of its way to the goal.
While routes are resuming, they are mostly resuming with fewer frequencies, smaller aircraft, or a mix of the two. The airline is one of the few actively operating the Airbus A380. However, only a tiny portion of its A380 fleet is currently operational, flying to a handful of destinations.
What do you make of Emirates’ route resumptions? Let us know what you think and why in the comments!
