São Paulo – The daily route São Paulo-Dubai of Emirates Airline will now use the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger airplane. The flights with the new aircraft are scheduled to start on March 26, according to an official statement made public by the airline this Monday (26).
Emirates will be the first airline to use the A380 in a regular flight to South America. According to the company, the choice of the aircraft, set to replace the Boeing 777-300ER currently being used, is part of the celebrations of the airline’s ten-year mark operating regular flights to Brazil – the first São Paulo-Dubai flight took place on October 2007.
“The Emirates A380 is an iconic aircraft that continues excite our customers and set the benchmark for travel comfort in commercial flying,” said in the statement Huber Frach, Emirates Divisional Senior Vice President of Commercial Operations in the West. “The switch to the A380 offers a total of 959 additional seats per week in each direction meeting a growing demand from travellers on the route and demonstrating our commitment to Brazil and to the South American region,” he added.
The aircraft configuration offers three classes, in a total of 491 seats: 14 first class private suits, 76 business class seats and 401 economy class seats. All the aircrafts have Wi-Fi and more than 2,600 channels of movie, TV, music and podcasts. The airline also offers a lounge where first and business class passengers can enjoy food and beverages prepared by a bartender.
The EK261 flights take off every day at 8:35 am from Dubai (DXB) and land in São Paulo (GRU) at 4:30 pm. The return flight, EK262, takes off from São Paulo (GRU) at 1:25 am and lands in Dubai (DXB) at 10:55 pm – all local time.
Emirates is the airline with the highest number of A380 in its fleet, with over 92 aircrafts in use and other 50 on order. Since 2008, over 65 million passengers have used the world’s largest aircraft operated by the airline. In Brazil, Emirates also flies to Dubai from Rio de Janeiro.
*Translated by Sérgio Kakitani
