Emirates has announced plans to increase flights to Italy from next month, following a new arrangement allowing its customers to travel to the country without needing to quarantine on arrival.

The carrier is to add two extra weekly flights to Milan from July, bringing its frequency to the city to ten weekly flights across its Dubai-Milan-New York JFK and Dubai-Milan routes.

In addition Emirates will resume flights to Venice on July 1, initially offering three flights per week on the route.

Together with the carrier’s existing five flights per week to Rome, and thrice weekly service to Bologna, Emirates will offer 21 weekly flights to Italy from next month, all served by B777-300ER aircraft.

The airline said that the increases follow the launch of “Covid-Tested flight” arrangements, allowing its passengers to avoid quarantine when arriving into Italy.

From tomorrow (June 2) customers aged two years and above must present a negative Covid-19 PCR-RT or Rapid Antigen test result valid for 48 hours prior to departure, as well as taking a Rapid Antigen swab test on arrival in Italy.

Several US carriers including American Airlines and Delta have been trialling quarantine-free flights to Milan and Rome in recent months.

American Airlines to operate quarantine-free flights to Milan and Rome

Commenting on the news His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates chairman and chief executive, said:

“We welcome the Covid-Tested flight arrangements and would like to thank the Italian and UAE authorities for their ongoing efforts to ease and facilitate international travel. The UAE has a strong and longstanding relationship with Italy and the safe return of air connectivity will help boost mutual trade and tourism.

“As a global commercial hub, and home to people from more than 200 nations, Dubai and the UAE have spared no effort to keep communities safe from the pandemic – from our world-leading vaccination programme to our bio-safety protocols across all sectors including recreation and entertainment facilities, to schools, businesses and airports. We hope that more countries will consider similar arrangements to facilitate quarantine-free travel.”

emirates.com