Dubai: The world's most populous country, China, will fittingly receive the aviation world's largest commercial aircraft with the start of Emirates A380 Dubai-Beijing-Dubai services on August 1.
The new service signals the first A380 operation to China, and follows an impressive series of A380-firsts to New Zealand, Thailand and Korea by the Dubai-based airline.
The 517-seat A380 will be deployed on the existing EK 306 service that departs Dubai daily at 4.10am, touching down in the Chinese capital city at 3.10pm.
Return flight EK 307 takes off from Beijing Capital International Airport at 11.55pm, landing at Terminal 3, Dubai International Airport at 4.20am the following day.
Tim Clark, president of Emirates, noted: "Emirates was the first Middle Eastern airline to establish direct air links with mainland China over seven years ago. The link has proved very successful for both of us and we are strengthening it further with the launch of China's first A380 service. This new operation bears testimony to our ongoing commitment to China; offering enhanced capacity to the world's third-largest economy as it surges ahead with its international trade and development agenda."
Benefits
"The A380 flight offers significant economic benefits to China by providing seamless connections between China and Africa, Europe and the Middle East via Emirates' Dubai hub. Today China ranks as Africa's second-largest trading partner with trade crossing $100 billion (Dh367 billion). Equally, Africa is China's second-largest engineering contracting market and deals, for contract projects exceed $126.3 billion."
Clark continued: "Trade between Dubai and China is on a steady rise, recording an average annual growth of 36 per cent. Also, the UAE is expecting a surge in incoming Chinese leisure groups after the Chinese Government granted it ‘Approved Destination Status' last year.
"Although our A380 will support the growing demand for air travel to/from China through capacity enhancements of almost 50 per cent, it will not be sufficient.
"We believe China's blazing economic growth justifies a further expansion in aviation links in the near future."
