Dubai-based carrier Emirates recently celebrated its 5th anniversary of its hugely-popular A380 flight between Dubai International Airport and Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport.
At an intimate media lunch hosted in Mumbai to mark this occasion, Emirates’ vice president India and Nepal, Essa Sulaiman Ahmad pointed out just how successful this route has been for the airline. “We have five daily flights between Mumbai and Dubai, and one of them is on an A380. This is an extremely popular choice for travellers because of its timings. Westbound passengers can make an easy connection to a host of destinations in Europe and the USA. Moreover, passengers can enjoy an all-A380 experience throughout their itinerary on many destinations. For example, someone flying from Mumbai to London and back can enjoy an A380 throughout the journey, and this really is an added value to our passengers, who want to enjoy our premium product, no matter what the class. Our economy class product is extremely premium, while our business class passengers enjoy an onboard lounge, and our first class passengers can even enjoy the inflight shower spa. Our A380 really is a delight for all segments of passengers.”
While Emirates has consistently expressed a desire to increase the number of A380 frequencies between Dubai and India, the bilateral seat allotment limitations have not permitted it to do so. But Ahmad is optimistic that we will see more A380s to India in the future.
For all the aviation geeks present in the room, there was a quick presentation summarising the five years of the A380 operations between Mumbai and Dubai, with lots of geeky trivia.
For example, there have been 3,630 departures, across 69,87,750 kms flown during these five years. An impressive 15,81,857 passengers have frequented this route on the A380.
Emirates is currently the world’s largest operator of the A380 with 112 aircraft of this type in the fleet, having flown more than 131 million passengers in its 11 years of service, since 2008.
