Emirates Confirms Los Angeles Arrival for A380

United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier Emirates Airline will introduce its Airbus A380 on its longest route before the end of this year after confirming that it will boost capacity on its flights between its Dubai International Airport hub and Los Angeles International Airport in the US in December 2013. It will replace its daily Boeing 777-300ER service with a daily Airbus A380 operation from December 2, 2013 increasing capacity by 22.2 per cent.

Emirates launched flights to Los Angeles in October 2008 and the destination will be its first on the US West Coast to be served by the Super Jumbo. It currently serves six destination in the US in addition to Los Angeles – San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Houston, Washington Dulles and New York JFK – and will launch a new Transatlantic route between New York and Milan, Italy, from October 1, 2013.

“Demand for our award-winning onboard service has steadily grown and customers have been requesting our industry-leading A380 to Los Angeles for some time now.  As Los Angeles is known for its luxury and the Hollywood lifestyle, bringing our A380 into the market was a natural fit as it allow every Emirates passenger the chance to experience the glamorous life at 35,000 feet before they arrive in Los Angeles.”

Orhan Abbas
Commercial Senior Vice-President of the Americas, Emirates Airline

“Demand for our award-winning onboard service has steadily grown and customers have been requesting our industry-leading A380 to Los Angeles for some time now," said Orhan Abbas, Commercial Senior Vice-President of the Americas, Emirates Airline. “As Los Angeles is known for its luxury and the Hollywood lifestyle, bringing our A380 into the market was a natural fit as it allow every Emirates passenger the chance to experience the glamorous life at 35,000 feet before they arrive in Los Angeles.”

The carrier will be utilising one of its 489-seat A380s on the route offering 14 Private First Class Suites, 76 lie-flat beds in Business Class and 399 seats in Economy Class. Alongside supporting the point-to-point demand between Dubai and Los Angeles - estimated at around 90,000 bi-directional O&D passengers in 2012 – the airline expects to secure additional connecting traffic to other destinations across the US including the likes of Phoenix, Las Vegas, San Diego and Honolulu.

The announcement of the A380 on the airline’s longest distance route follows hot on the heels of last week’s announcement regarding the introduction of A380 service to Zurich, Switzerland. The A380 to Los Angeles will compliment the double daily A380 flights already in place between Dubai and New York’s John F Kennedy International Airport and will be the 23rd A380 destination on the Emirates global route network.

Los Angeles International Airport is already served by the A380s of Air France, China Southern Airlines, Korean Air, Qantas and Singapore Airlines and alongside Emirates, British Airways will launch flights with the type to the US city during the second half of this year. An analysis of current weekly flight schedules shows that Los Angeles International is actually the third largest non-base airport to be served by the A380 behind London Heathrow and Hong Kong International. The full results of the analysis on A380 global flight operations are detailed in the table below.