Dubai’s Emirates to boost services to Melbourne

Flagship carrier Emirates has announced its second daily flight on the Dubai-Melbourne route, served by its A380 aircraft.

Starting May 1, the airline will offer customers fourteen weekly services from Dubai to Melbourne. The additional daily frequency between the two cities will grow Emirates’ seats to over 1,000 a day, totalling 700,000 a year between Dubai and Victoria, with 516 seats on each flight.

Travellers can choose from 14 first class suites, 76 lie-flat seats in business class and 426 seats in economy class. Tickets can be booked on the carrier’s website or mobile app as well as via online and offline travel agents.

.@emirates boosts #Dubai-Melbourne route with a double daily flight served by its flagship A380 aircraft. Starting 1 May, the airline will offer customers fourteen weekly services from Dubai to Melbourne. pic.twitter.com/oUDBBI2y6w

— Dubai Media Office (@DXBMediaOffice) March 23, 2022

From May 1, Emirates’ additional daily flight will depart Dubai daily at 10.05am, arriving in Melbourne at 5.30am the next day. From Melbourne, the flight will depart at 5.15am and arrive in Dubai at 1.10pm. The additional flight will join the existing service which flies daily from Dubai, departing at 2.40am and arriving at 9.50pm in Melbourne. From Melbourne, the flight departs at 9.15pm and is scheduled to arrive in Dubai at 5.15am the next day. All times are local.

Before the Covid-19 pandemic, international flights brought more than 3.1 million visitors to Victoria each year and injected $8.8bn into the economy. Emirates carried 22 per cent of the 1.3 million passengers that arrived in Victoria from European countries such as Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands and Switzerland, which added $86m to the Victorian economy in 2019, a statement said.

Barry Brown, Emirates divisional vice president for Australasia said: “As an international airline that has been serving Australia for over 25 years, we are especially delighted to boost our services to Melbourne, adding yet more seats and flight options to the Victorian capital. The newly expanded flight schedule also means our customers can experience three continents in one day, enjoying their breakfast in Australia, lunch in Dubai, and dinner in Europe.”

“Emirates’ inaugural flight to Australia arrived in Melbourne in 1996. Since then, we have carried more than 11 million passengers on this key route and we are delighted that Victorian travellers and businesses can continue to enjoy the global reach that our expansive network offers.”

With Australia being the third-largest destination for Emirates’ A380 operations, the airline has been committed to increasing flights which will soar to 42 weekly flights in May, with the airline’s flagship flying to Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Emirates also provides passenger services to Perth with the Boeing 777-300ER, which will operate daily from May 1.

Customers of Emirates and Qantas have access to an expansive network of destinations due to the codeshare partnership between the two airlines. In addition to over 120 destinations that Emirates flies to, its customers currently have access to nearly 30 Australian destinations through the partnership, while Qantas customers can fly on Emirates to Dubai and access over 50 cities in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.