Emirates announced yesterday it will upgrade one of its nine daily flights between Dubai and Doha to an Airbus A380 from December 1 this year.
Emirates recently boosted its services to Doha with two additional flights, taking its total operations to nine daily services and making it the most served destination in the airline’s network.
Demand has been steadily increasing between Dubai and Doha, with over 700,000 passengers carried since January of this year alone. Once launched, Doha will be Emirates’ 45th A380 destination to be served by the flagship aircraft.
Doha will also become the world’s shortest scheduled A380 flight flying a distance of 379km each way. The Emirates A380 will be deployed as EK 841, which will depart Dubai at 7.45am arriving in Doha at 8.05am. The return flight, EK 842 will depart Doha at 9.50am arriving in Dubai at noon.
“The timing of the A380 service will provide business and leisure travellers with an A380 experience to Dubai as well as connections of under four hours to some of the most popular onwards destinations serviced by the A380 including; New York, London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Manchester, Dusseldorf, Milan, Paris, Rome and Amsterdam,” Emirate said in a statement.
The Emirates A380 that will be deployed to Doha will be set in a three-class configuration, with 429 seats in Economy Class on the main deck, 76 flat-bed seats in Business Class and 14 First Class Private Suites on the upper deck, enabling Emirates to serve increased premium demand to and from Doha.
Once the A380 reaches cruising altitude, passengers in First and Business Class can enjoy the facilities of the Onboard Lounge. Emirates currently has 85 A380s in service and 57 pending delivery, more than any other airline globally.
Customers can take advantage of special A380 Economy Class fares from Doha for QR385; Bangkok from QR1,915; London Heathrow from QR2,085; and Los Angeles from QR3,415. Free Wi-Fi is available on board all A380 flights.
“The upgrade to the A380 will provide Emirates the increased ability to serve growing demand for travel out of Doha. The deployment of the Emirates A380 operation was made possible through the support of the Qatari Authorities,” the airline said.
The increase in capacity between Dubai and Doha will help to grow trade inroads between the UAE and Qatar. The UAE is Qatar’s fifth largest trading partner with bilateral trade volumes reaching over $7bn in 2015.