Emirates direct flights from Dubai to Edinburgh
Richard Jewsbury, Emirates Divisional Vice President, UK, (left), with Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport, and Hubert Frach, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations West, flanked by Emirates cabin crew.
On 1st October, 2018, Emirates launched a daily direct service from Dubai to Edinburgh with much fan-fare. The Dubai airport saw men in the traditional Emirati kandura playing the Great Highland bagpipe, welcoming passengers onboard the pilot flight. On the other side, the celebrations continued as the flight – EK023 – was greeted with a water cannon salute at touch-down.
Edinburgh is Emirates’ second destination in Scotland, after Glasgow, and eighth in the United Kingdom. With 354 seats on its daily service, this brings the count to 2500 seats in a week. Gordon Dewar, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Airport said, “Exactly 10 years and 10 days ago, I flew out to Dubai to convince Emirates to come serve Edinburgh. It is a day of great pride to see this over the finish line.”
The new route for Emirates comes on the same day as Etihad’s closure of its Abu Dhabi to Edinburgh route, which was announced in April 2018. In a statement, Etihad Airways said that the closure was, ‘part of an ongoing review of network performance.’
While Emirates’ service has been launched as a daily, it will be reduced to a service of 5 times a week between 16 April and 30 May 2019, due to the repair and closure of the runway in Dubai. Putting an end to any speculation that this may be to cut costs, Hubert Frach, Emirates’ Divisional Senior Vice President, Operations, West, assured that once the runway was reopened the daily service would resume.
Boosting connectivity with the Indian market
The Dubai Police Band gives Emirates flight EK23 a send-off with a Scottish flavour.
This new service provides increased connectivity to the Indian traveller through one of their favourite destinations. Malcolm Roughead OBE, Chief Executive of VisitScotland, said, “The launch of this Emirates service from Dubai to Edinburgh, coupled with the existing Emirates service to Scotland, strengthens the country’s reputation as a world-class destination and presents the Scottish tourism industry with a fantastic opportunity to further attract visitors via this major global air hub.”
“This new service will further boost connectivity with the Indian market, which in the last ten years has seen trips and spend to Scotland rise by almost two thirds, to £43,200 and £17.6 million respectively. India’s luxury travellers and the fast-growing middle-class traveller market have a propensity to travel outside of the main visitor season and are important in developing Scotland as a year-round sustainable visitor destination.”
The route is serviced by the Boeing 777 which comes with three-class cabin configuration: private suites in first class, seats that convert to flat beds in business class, and spacious economy class seats.
