Emirates Starts Flights to Dublin

Emirates Airlines, one of world’s fastest growing carriers, will offer a daily service between Dubai and Dublin. The airline kicked off the service with yesterday’s inaugural flight which flew into Dublin.

Emirates Airlines started its daily flight service between Dublin and Dubai on Monday.

Dublin has become the third route in the year 2012 to be added to the airline’s expanding network. The Irish capital took its position in the Emirates network after the launch of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Buenos Aires in Argentina in the first week of the New Year.

Flights to Dublin via Dubai will offer an efficient channel to markets such as Australia, India, Thailand and China.

A host of dignitaries were on board yesterday’s inaugural flight from Dubai – Tim Clark, President, Emirates airline; Salem Obaidalla, Emirates Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, Europe & Russian Federation; Ram Menen, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President-Cargo; Ciaran Madden, Ireland’s Ambassador to the UAE; Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport; Colm McLoughlin, Vice Chairman, Dubai Duty Free and Niall Gibbons, CEO Tourism Ireland.

Emirates is offering daily flights to Dublin and is plying an A330-200 on the route. The aircraft will be in a three class configuration, providing First Class, Business Class as well as Economy Class travel to passengers who seek those elusive cheap flight tickets with the full-service airline.

EK 0161 takes off from Dubai airport at 0700hrs and lands at Dublin Airport’s Terminal 2 at 1130hrs. EK 0162 flies from Dublin at 1255hrs and arrives in Dubai at 0025hrs, the next day.

Tim Clark, President, Emirates expressed his pleasure and hailed the new flight launch as a wonderful development for both Irish business and Irish tourism.

“We are now connecting Ireland not only to Dubai, but also to over 100 destinations throughout the world. Solid early bookings have demonstrated that the demand is there, opening up new markets for passengers and cargo to and from the Republic,” he was quoted in news reports.

“The inauguration of this new daily service between Dubai and Dublin is a huge boost for Irish tourism, business and aviation. With a daily direct service between Dubai and Ireland, trade, tourism and relations between the two countries and beyond will continue to grow,” said Leo Varadkar, Ireland’s Minister for Transport, Tourism & Sport.

“It also considerably improves connectivity with India, Australia and New Zealand, which should result in a further increase in tourism numbers from these countries,” he added.

Australia is an extremely significant market for the new operation as a substantial population of Irish nationals live in Australia. As per reported figures, as many as 70 passengers on the 237-seat inaugural flight came from bookings in the Southern Hemisphere’s country. Each week, Emirates offers 70 flights to Australia and this includes an A380 service to Sydney. Emirates A380 service is not exactly known for cheap flights tickets but the airline’s A380 Onboard Lounge is one attraction not many would like to miss.

“Tourism Ireland and the Dublin Airport Authority (DAA), both of which fall under my remit, are working with Emirates to promote the route and Emirates Holidays has included Ireland in its holiday brochure for 2012,” Leo Varadkar further added.

Emirates will also be initiating services to Lusaka, Harare, Seattle and Dallas over the period of next two months.