Emirates to operate daily flights to Madinah

Dubai: Emirates airline plans to increase its flights to Madinah to seven per week from October 31.

"The airline remains committed to the kingdom with a total of 25 flights per week operating through its four gateways. These three new services will bring the number to 28 flights per week, as well as increasing additional capacity to the kingdom by 15 per cent," a statement from the airline said.

Madinah, where the first Islamic state was founded by the Prophet Mohammad (PBUH), is the second most important city to Muslims as it hosts the prophet's holy shrine. Muslim pilgrims make it a point to visit Madinah while performing Haj and Umrah and this is driving the demand for additional flights.

Emirates' first flight to Madinah took place on July this year. The service remains on a temporary schedule until March 26, 2011.

From October 31, flights to Madinah will depart from Dubai each day at 1.15am, arriving in Madinah at 3.15am. On the return journey, the flight will depart from Madinah at 4.45am, arriving in Dubai at 8.15am.

Emirates currently has four scheduled flights, departing on Tuesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

"Saudi Arabia is an important market for Emirates and our new daily service to Al Madinah Al Munawarah is key to our continued growth there. In the last two years we have increased operations to the kingdom from 17 to 25 weekly flights and we will continue to work closely with the Saudi authorities to implement additional services," said Ahmad Khoury, the airline's senior vice-president commercial operations, Gulf, Middle East and Iran.

"This daily service will offer our customers in the kingdom even more choice, helping to connect both business and leisure travellers not only to Dubai, but also to our extensive network around the world. There is significant demand for travel in and out of Al Madinah Al Munawarah and we are confident that these new flights will be well received by our customers," he said.

The service is operated by an Airbus A330-200 aircraft, offering 12 seats in First class, 42 seats in Business Class and 183 seats in Economy.