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Emirates took delivery of an incredible 80th Airbus A380 back on 21 June as the airline continues a seemingly relentless deployment of its Whale Jets through 2016. This year alone we’ve seen Heathrow get a 6th daily A380 flight, the Munich & Düsseldorf routes go all-A380, Los Angeles and Amsterdam getting second A380 flights and announcements that Melbourne, Moscow & Auckland will all see A380 service later this year. But it turns out that Emirates isn’t finished there.
Emirates Increases A380 Service To Kuala Lumpur
From 1 September 2016 Emirates will be adding a second Airbus A380 aircraft to its Dubai – Kuala Lumpur route.
From 1 September to 30 September 2016 the airline will maintain 4 daily flights between Dubai and Kuala Lumpur with the second A380 replacing a Boeing 777-300ER on flights EK346/347.
The schedule will look like this:
EK408 DXB 02:40 – 13:50 KUL (daily 777-330ER service)
EK346 DXB 03:50 – 15:05 KUL (daily A380 service)
EK342 DXB 10:30 – 21:50 KUL (daily A380 service)
EK344 DXB 21:35 – 08:55+1 day KUL (daily 777-330ER service)
EK343 KUL 02:10 – 04:55 DXB (daily A380 service)
EK409 KUL 10:10 – 13:00 DXB (daily 777-330ER service)
EK345 KUL 10:30 – 13:30 DXB (daily 777-330ER service)
EK347 KUL 19:20 – 22:15 DXB (daily A380 service)
Both A380 aircraft on this route will initially be 3-class aircraft but, from 1 October 2016, Emirates will begin swapping out the A380 operating EK342/343 for a 2-class variant (discussed here).
Seat Map Emirates A380 2-class variant(click to enlarge)
Lower Deck – screenshot from Seatguru.com
Upper Deck – screenshot from Seatguru.com
From 30 October 2016 Emirates will scale back capacity on this route by eliminating flights EK408/409 (currently operated by a Boeing 777-300ER) and from 1 February 2017 the second 3-class A380 (EK346/347) will also begin to swap over to a 2-class variant.
Emirates Sends Another A380 To Milan (MXP)
Emirates operates 3 daily flights between Dubai and Milan’s Malpensa airport with two of those flights currently being operated by Boeing 777-300ER aircraft and one being served by a 3-class A380.
Well, Emirates has clearly decided that it needs more capacity on this route because, from 1 October 2016, one of the Boeing aircraft is being swapped out for another 3-class Airbus A380.
The schedule will be as follows:
EK101 DXB 03:45 – 0825 MXP (daily 777-330ER service)
EK205 DXB 09:45 – 1420 MXP (daily A380 service)
EK091 DXB 15:45 – 2030 MXP (daily A380 service) **new A380 service**
EK102 MXP 11:10 – 19:20 DXB (daily 777-330ER service)
EK206 MXP 14:05 – 22:10 DXB (daily A380 service)
EK092 MXP 22:20 – 06:25+1 day DXB (daily A380 service) **new A380 service**
Emirates calculates that by replacing the 777 with a 3-class A380 it will be adding an extra 262 daily seats to the Dubai – Milan route.
The three class A380 that will operate this route with be the lower density variant with the following cabin layouts:
- 14 First Class Suites
- 76 Business Class seats
- 401 Economy Class seats
Bottom Line
As I seem to say every time an airline adds more capacity – the addition of another A380 on the Dubai – Milan route should be very good news for flyers. More capacity should put more pressure on pricing and, theoretically at least, should make it easier to find awards (the addition of the second A380 will see an extra 34 Business Class seats added to the route every day).
The news for Kuala Lumpur isn’t quite so positive. For a few months capacity will be increased and two 3-class A380 on the route should make it easier to book premium award seats….but that’s not going to last. The end result of the aircraft swaps will see the number of daily flights reduced by 25% and the two A380 aircraft on the route will be configured in Emirates’ highest density layout.
Still, the 2-class A380 still come with 58 Business Class seats and, on the A380 at least, Emirates Business Class is still one of the best.
[…] this post is no different. In July the airline announced an A380 service to Auckland and more A380 service for both Kuala Lumpur and Milan and it seems to have a developed a taste for turning some of its routes “all A380” […]