Tag Archives: Emirates

Tourism Ireland CEO Niall Gibbons has unveiled the Emirates Airline and Tourism Ireland Sales Mission at Jumeirah Creekside Hotel, Dubai. The Sales Mission is part of Tourism Ireland’s continued efforts to drive tourism from the UAE to the island of Ireland and provides unique networking opportunity for Irish suppliers and the UAE travel trade community. With six speakers, five presentations and a networking session followed by a series of one to one sessions with Irish suppliers, the mission was attended by 90 tour operators and included a key note speech from Gerald Lawless, Head of Tourism and Hospitality at Dubai Holding. Nine Irish suppliers attended the mission, including DMC’s, hotels, retail outlets and attractions. The Sales Mission showcased the island of Ireland’s filming locations of hit TV series Game of Thrones and blockbuster movie, Star Wars. During his visit to the UAE, Gibbons also met with Mohammed Al Rais, CEO of Al Rais Travels. Tourism Ireland and Al Rais Travel have recently joined together to bring one of the region’s top bloggers, Taim Al Falasi, to tour the island of Ireland. During the Sales Mission, Al Rais Travel launched a new seven day itinerary ‘Taim’s Ireland Experience’, allowing fans of the blogger to follow in her footsteps and experience the island of Ireland.  As part of the destination’s focus on innovation to attract new audiences, Tourism Ireland also invited agents and partners to view a series of Virtual Reality Films during the roadshow which brought stunning itineraries to life including The Wild Atlantic Way and Belfast City through personal VR viewers made available to attendees.

Emirates has revamped its corporate loyalty programme, Emirates Business Rewards, to provide greater value and added features for customers. The new programme has been simplified and made more competitive to allow upgrades on last minute bookings. One of the biggest features is the ability to use Business Rewards Points to book any commercially available seat at any time giving members cash-like convenience. Emirates is the first and only airline in the region to offer such flexibility as part of its corporate loyalty programme – improving cost-effectiveness for business travel. Emirates Business Rewards has enhanced its user-experience with easy-to-use customer dashboards. These include tools to manage and book services for employees, and monitor the savings accumulated so far on the programme.

Emirates Skywards, the frequent flyer programme of Emirates Airline, marks its 16th year milestone with over 16 million members and the successful launch of new initiatives to enhance reward options for members. Since the programme’s inception in 2000, Emirates Skywards members have redeemed 220 billion Miles on reward flights, hotels stays and exclusive access to the biggest events worldwide. The diversity of the programme’s partners and rewards are reflected in the airline’s global customer base and network spanning six continents and over 150 destinations. With a focus on customer satisfaction, Emirates Skywards continuously forms exclusive partnerships and introduces new initiatives to offer greater value, choice and flexibility to its members. Most recently, Emirates Skywards has introduced Cash+Miles — allowing flight redemption using a combination of cash and Skywards Miles. Members in all four tiers — Blue, Silver, Gold and Platinum — can start redeeming flights with as little as 2,000 Miles. This popular new initiative instantly reduces the cost of the tickets and can be used on any Emirates flight across all classes, making any seat available to Emirates Skywards members. To date, Emirates Skywards has 14 airline partners including strategic partnerships with Easyjet and Qantas, offering members access to one of the world’s largest networks of global travel destinations. The programme also has 24 hotel partner brands covering nearly 20,000 properties worldwide. This includes a collaboration with the Starwood Preferred Guest (SPG) programme which gives members double rewards through the ability to earn both Skywards Miles and Starpoints when they fly with Emirates or stay with Starwood. Emirates Skywards members also enjoy access to a global network of 39 Emirates lounges in major airports including six lounges at Dubai …

Emirates will add two additional daily flights to Doha, effective October 30, 2016 making it nine daily flights to the Qatar capital. Emirates currently operates seven daily flights to Doha, and the addition of the two services will grow the airline’s presence in Qatar and take the total number of weekly Emirates flights to 63. So far in 2016, over half a million passengers have travelled on the Dubai-Doha service. In the first three months of 2016, there was a 26 per cent spike in visitor volumes to Dubai from Qatar over the previous year (according to Dubai Tourism and Commerce Marketing). The timings of the new Doha services have also been scheduled to facilitate shorter connection times to popular destinations in Southeast Asia such as Singapore, Cebu and Clark. Furthermore, the new flights introduce convenient connections to popular European destinations such as Lisbon and Larnaca, Capetown in Africa and Los Angeles in the US, increasing access to key business and leisure centres both east and westbound. Through its hub, Emirates will also be seamlessly connecting passengers to its extensive route network of over 150 destinations, served by a fleet of all wide body aircraft offering a superior level of comfort as well as the latest products and services on board for customers. The airline’s network also encompasses more than 40 cities around the globe served by the iconic Emirates A380.

Emirates has announced that the service between Dubai and Khartoum will be upgraded with the deployment of a larger Boeing 777-300ER on the route from 1st September 2016.The Boeing 777 will replace the current Airbus A340-300 and offer travellers on the route an enhanced on-board product experience and additional seats in Economy Class. Enhancements include an updated ice entertainment system with larger TV screens across all three cabin classes and over 2500 channels of on demand audio and visual entertainment,featuring the latest movies, music, audio books, podcasts and games.The aircraft also has eight private suites in First Class with automated sliding doors for privacy, 42 lie flat seats in Business Class and 310 spacious seats in Economy Class – nearly 100 seats more than the A340-300. Emirates flies four times a week between Khartoum and Dubai, and enables Sudanese travellers to connect to destinations across its global network, particularly the Middle East, the United States, United Kingdom and Asia Pacific region, with just one comfortable and convenient stop at the airline’s Dubai hub.Emirates flight EK733 departs Dubai every Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 14h35 and arrives in Khartoum at 17h40. The return flight EK734 leaves Khartoum at 19h10 and arrives in Dubai at 0020 the following morning.

Emirates will operate a special one-off A380 service to Amman on September 25, marking 30 years of commitment to Jordan. The airline’s flagship double-decker, with the ability to carry over 500 passengers at a time, will make history when it becomes the first-ever scheduled A380 service to Queen Alia International Airport, and it will also be the first time the A380 commercially operates to the Levant. On September 25, the Emirates A380 service will operate EK 901 and EK 902, departing Dubai at 0725hrs and arriving in Amman at 0930hrs. The flight will then depart Amman at 1300hrs arriving in Dubai at 1700hrs on the same day. This year is a milestone for Emirates as it celebrates 30 successful years of operations to Jordan. With the support of the Jordanian Authorities and Airport International Group, the deployment of the one-off Emirates A380 operation has been made possible through significant infrastructure upgrades to accommodate the aircraft. Since its introduction to the Emirates fleet in 2008, the A380 has proved tremendously popular with customers, and the upcoming service next month will give travellers the chance to experience this revolutionary aircraft and the best service in the sky.

Emirates Airlines has enhanced its presence in Southeast Asia with the launch of a new daily linked service from Dubai to Yangon (RGN) in Myanmar, and onwards to Hanoi (HAN) in Vietnam. This new service, which is being operated with a Boeing 777-300ER, expands the airline’s network in Southeast Asia to 12 cities in seven countries and offers more choices and convenience to passengers travelling between Hanoi and Yangon to Dubai and beyond. Yangon, the first destination within Myanmar to be served by Emirates, is one of the fastest growing economies in Southeast Asia. As the country’s largest city and the most important commercial centre, Yangon contributes approximately one fifth to the country’s GDP. The previously undiscovered country offers visitors a rare glimpse of ancient Asia, and since the opening up of tourism, has witnessed an increase in foreign tourist arrivals. Meanwhile, Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam and also a destination with rich culture and heritage for over a thousand years, becomes Emirates’ second gateway within the country following the launch of services to Ho Chi Minh City in 2012. As with all Emirates flights, passengers travelling on the Yangon and Hanoi service will be able to take advantage of the generous Emirates baggage allowance of up to 35kg in Economy Class, and 40kg in Business Class, and 50kg in First Class. Flights to Yangon and Hanoi will depart daily from Dubai as EK388 at 03:30hrs arriving at Yangon International Airport at 11:40hrs. The service will then depart from Yangon at 13:00hrs and arrive at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport at 15:30hrs. The return flight, EK389 will depart Hanoi at 22:50hrs, arriving at Yangon at 00:20hrs the next day. The …

Between 2014 and 2015, first class passenger volumes for Emirates, Qatar Airways and Etihad Airways on the top 10 Origins & Destinations between Europe and Asia Pacific increased 67%, whilst business class traffic increased by 47%. This staggering growth in premium classes was complemented by healthy overall growth, with a 7% increase in passenger volumes across all cabin classes for these routes.Airports in the Middle East also noticed a shift in traveller habits: passenger traffic for flights between Europe and APAC going through Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai increased by 8%. This data was analysed by Amadeus IT Group’s Travel Intelligence team, and takes into account all bookings in the Amadeus system made via traditional and online travel agencies from across the globe. The figures come on the heels of Emirates and Etihad Airways both renewing their distribution agreements to sell their full range of fares to travellers worldwide through travel agents using Amadeus. Qatar Airways has had such an agreement in place since 2014. While the Amadeus distribution channel supports airline growth by providing the technology for them to partner with the world’s largest travel community, Amadeus Travel Intelligence enables airlines and other travel players to make effective use of data and analytics to improve the profitability of their business. Amadeus Travel Intelligence combines the latest big data technologies with rich data sources and a dedicated team of talented data scientists, to deliver unique and actionable insights into each airline’s business. This intelligence provides in-depth information for airlines to gain real insights into overall market dynamics, their own performance and growth opportunities.The top ten most popular Origins & Destinations between Europe and APAC are Frankfurt – Bangkok,  London– Bangkok, …

Travelport has announced the renewal of both its global full content and IT agreements with Emirates. The partnership will see Emirates offer Travelport connected agencies in 180 countries — serving hundreds of millions of travellers around the world continued access to all of Emirates’ fares and inventory through the Travel Commerce Platform. Furthermore, Travelport has signed an extension of its long-standing IT services agreement with Emirates. This agreement will see Travelport continue to provide Emirates with industry leading pricing, shopping and ticket rebooking technology, enabling Emirates to support advanced shopping and rebooking options within their internal sales channels including ww.emirates.com. On the distribution side, the new deal means Emirates will commence the initial rollout of Travelport’s airline merchandising solutions giving them the capability to directly promote their fare brands, ancillaries and associated upsell options — for the first time — to the global travel agent community. Joining approximately 170 airlines now live with Travelport’s merchandising solution (Rich Content and Branding), Emirates will benefit from Travelport’s ability to provide detailed product descriptions, including images and related ancillary options to travel agencies. Derek Sharp, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Air Commerce, Travelport, commented that they are delighted to build on their strong partnership with Emirates through this enhanced global full content agreement as well as the renewal of their long standing IT agreement.  Emirates’ choice to offer agents their branded fares content with detailed descriptions and imagery will enable agents to more effectively upsell Emirates’ services providing an improved service to travellers and hopefully boosting Emirates’ growth across the globe.

Emirates has announced that it will be upgrading one of its four daily flights between Dubai and Johannesburg to an Airbus A380-800 from 1st February 2017. Emirates currently uses Boeing 777 aircraft for each of the four daily flights between the two cities, making it the busiest route in the airline’s African network with over three million passengers carried in the last five years. Once launched, Johannesburg will join more than 40 destinations in Emirates’ extensive global network that is served by its flagship A380 aircraft. The A380 will offer a total of 516 seats in a three class cabin configuration, with 14 private suites in First Class, 76 mini-pods with lie-flat seats in Business Class and 426 spacious seats in Economy Class. It will be deployed on the first flight of the day, EK761, and will depart Dubai at 04h40 and arrive in Johannesburg at 10h55. The return flight, EK762, will depart Johannesburg at 13h25 and arrive in Dubai at 23h45.