Bologna: Emirates Airline on Tuesday launched direct, daily flights to Bologna, its fourth Italian city after Rome, Venice and Milan.
Water cannons received the Boeing 777-300 at the turmac of the city, which is rich in its art, culture, trade and known world-wide for its medieval historical centres.
Bologna has a “good customer base and we want to offer people the option of flying from here”, Thierry Antinori, Emirates Executive Vice-President and Chief Commercial officer Commercial Operations Worldwide, told Gulf News.
“It is going to be a very popular destination,” he added.
Emirates airline is planning to connect tourists and businessmen from Asian countries to Bologna and to offer the tourists from Europe the option of flying to the East though Dubai.
In order to achieve the goal, the senior official announced during the press conference that Emirates airline will bring 12 media groups from the different far eastern countries to Bologna in the next two months.
Emirates wants “to show them the city, because it is not known as Venice or Rome, [also] because we want to be successful and, to be successful, part of the job is to do the job by yourself,” he told Gulf News.
While Emriates airline has a total of 1,000 Italians working with it world-wide, the UAE has the biggest Italian community east of Europe.
Enrico Postacchini, Chairman of Bologna Airport, told Gulf News that the airport has a capacity of over seven million passengers a year. Plans for further investment to increase the capacity are under way, he added.
Bologna airport is among the top European airports in terms of connectivity, he added.
