Emirates adds to Austria, Hamburg services

( Reuters) - Emirates is strengthening its operations in Northern Europe by adding more flights to Austria and Germany on the back of new route announcements into Switzerland and Denmark.

Four extra flights will be added to the airline’s daily service to Vienna from 27 March. The additional Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday flights will be served by an Airbus A340-500, offering 12 First Class Private Suites, 42 lie-flat seats in Business Class and 204 seats in Economy.

From September 1, Emirates’ daily flight to Hamburg becomes double daily. The extra frequencies are supported by a Boeing 777-200, also in a three-class configuration.

“By providing these extra flights, we are responding to strong demand for additional capacity on the Vienna and Hamburg routes. The strengthened services will foster new business and tourism to two of our key European destinations and provide even more convenient connections to onward travel through our international hub of Dubai,’ said Salem Obaidalla, Emirates’ SVP commercial operations, Europe & Russian Federation.

Emirates has also announced two brand new routes for Europe so far this year. In Switzerland, a new daily service will start to Geneva from 1 June. On August 1, flights will start to the Danish capital, Copenhagen, representing the airline’s first passenger service into Scandinavia. Elsewhere on the network, a new flight to Basra in Iraq started yesterday. 

No delays to Emirates A380 deliveries 

Airbus is on track to deliver six to seven A380 planes this year to Emirates airlines, its biggest customer for the superjumbos, an Airbus Middle East executive said on Wednesday.

Dubai government-owned Emirates, among the fastest-growing carriers in the world, plans to increase its fleet to eventually include 120 Airbus A380s. 

Fouad Attar, Deputy President and head of commercial at Airbus Middle East, said the aircraft maker would deliver ‘six to seven’ A380 jets to Emirates this year.

Asked whether there were any delays in the deliveries to Emirates, he said: “No, they’re all on time. There’s no delay.” 

Attar also said Airbus expected 50 to 100 orders from the Middle East and North Africa region and the company would focus on Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt and elsewhere in North Africa.

“There’s lot of potential in North Africa,”Attar told reporters on the sidelines of an aviation, adding the political turmoil in Egypt could affect the number of orders.