Emirates flights to Brisbane start this month

Emirates is to launch a new daily service between Dubai and Brisbane via Singapore on 26 October 2003. The flights will be extended to Auckland, the commercial capital of New Zealand.

Brisbane, state capital of Queensland, is the airline's fourth destination in Australia after Sydney, Melbourne and Perth. The new service will boost tourism and trade ties. Emirates has full traffic rights between Singapore and Brisbane, and Brisbane and Auckland.

Initially, the flights will be operated with an Airbus A330-200 in three-class configuration, offering 18 First class seats, 42 in Business and 183 in Economy.

From 1 December, a Boeing 777-300 will be operated on the route, which will increase the number of available Economy seats to 320, with the same number of First and Business class seats. Thus, an additional 2,660 Emirates seats per week will then be available into Brisbane. The Boeing 777-300 can also carry 23 tonnes of cargo.

Ghaith Al Ghaith, Executive Vice-President Commercial Operations Worldwide, said: "These flights are a demonstration of our commitment not only to our Australian and New Zealand customers but also to our determination to become a serious player on the Trans-Tasman route. We are here to stay."

He added: “We look forward to working with Tourism Queensland to increase leisure travel to Brisbane and the Gold Coast, already a favourite destination with Arab nationals. We also intend to serve communities in Queensland, especially retirees who have chosen to live in this wonderful part of Australia.

The new service will provide a 33 per cent increase in flights per week into Brisbane. It will also increase by 18 per cent the number of seats per week on the competitive Singapore-Brisbane route.

Flight details

Flight EK430 departs Dubai daily at 08:25; arrives Singapore at 19:50; departs Singapore at 21:00 and arrives Brisbane at 06:25 the following day. The flight carries on to Auckland, departing Brisbane at 07:50 and arriving Auckland at 13:55. All times are local.

The return flight EK431 departs Auckland daily at 18:25; arrives Brisbane at 18:55; departs Brisbane at 20:05; arrives Singapore at 02:00 the following day; departs Singapore at 03:15 and arrives Dubai at 06:40.