São Paulo – Emirates Airline wants its flight between Dubai and Rio Janeiro to be sold out. The company is expecting the flight’s occupancy rates to remain at the same level as those seen in the flight between São Paulo and Dubai: 80%. The senior vice president of commercial operations for the Americas, Nigel Page, said this Thursday (19th) in Rio de Janeiro that he would like the flight’s occupancy rate to exceed 80%. “It would be very rewarding to reach that mark,” he said, by the CEO of Emirates Brazil, Ralf Aasmann, during a press conference.
In early April, Emirates announced that starting on January 3rd, 2012 it will have a direct flight from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates, to Rio de Janeiro. Flight EK-247 will take off from Dubai at 07:05 am (local time) and land in Rio de Janeiro at 03:35 pm (Brasília time zone). The flight will then leave Rio de Janeiro at 05:20 pm and touch down in Buenos Aires, Argentina, at 07:30 pm.
The flight that will take off from Rio de Janeiro headed for Dubai will fly in from Buenos Aires. It will take off from Brazil at 02:55 am and arrive at its destination at 10:35 (local time). The company is also going to sell tickets for the Rio de Janeiro-Buenos Aires stretch.
The flight will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with capacity for 304 passengers. Eight seats will be allotted to the first class, 42 to the business class, and the remainder to economic class.
Emirates began flying to Brazil in 2007 with a flight between São Paulo and Dubai. In the fiscal year ended March 31st, the company posted profit of US$ 1.6 billion. The company’s revenues reached US$ 15.6 billion, mostly due to the 14.5% increase in number of passengers transported between April 1st, 2010 and March 31st, 2011, which is Emirates’ fiscal year.
*Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum
