Emirates poised to expand A380 services

With the arrival of its 20th Airbus A380 aircraft, Emirates is mapping out its fast-growing destination network with superjumbos. Having received its first A380 in July 2008, the Arab world's biggest carrier and also the biggest A380 customer yesterday said Melbourne and Tokyo would be added to its A380 network in 2012. Emirates will launch its superjumbo route expansion by deploying the A380s on the Kuala Lumpur route starting January 1. A380 services to Narita and Melbourne will commence on July 1 and October 1 respectively. In addition to this, the carrier, which is flying the A380 on 16 routes now, is also expected to raise the A380 frequency on its present routes. It said recently that the current twice-daily A380 services on the Dubai-London Heathrow route would be increased to three daily from January 24 and four a day from March 25. More orders on way This year alone Emirates added four A380 services to its network — to Rome, Johannesburg, Munich and Shanghai. Other Emirates destinations currently served by the A380 include Manchester, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Rome, Munich, Toronto, Seoul, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai, Jeddah, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney, Johannesburg and Auckland. Further, as 70 more A380s (of its total order of 90) are due to join the carrier's fleet over five years, Emirates is eyeing more A380 orders. The carrier has repeatedly expressed intentions to increase its order for the aircraft to 120 as a long-term plan. "I hope [we will have] more [of the A380s]. Today we have a huge firm order for 90 A380s. "We should have all of the 90 superjumbos operational between now and the next five years," Shaikh Ahmad Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates airline and Group, recently told Gulf News in an interview. Good demand On similar lines, Emirates president Tim Clark was quoted as saying last week that Emirates is hoping to soon place more orders for the 525-seat aircraft. "I am personally very keen to get more A380s. I hope that we will soon order some," Clark was quoted as saying by the German daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung, according to a Reuters report. He added that almost all the flights with the A380 are full as Emirates continues to see good demand for the aircraft.