United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier, Emirates Airline, is to boost capacity into the Eastern European markets of Hungary and Poland before the end of the year by introducing larger equipment on its daily flights to Budapest and Warsaw from its Dubai International Airport hub.
Updated schedules for the remainder of the year show the Gulf carrier will switch the aircraft type deployed on the routes to Budapest’s Ferenc Liszt International Airport and Warsaw’s Chopin Airport from its smallest aircraft, the Airbus A330-200, to a larger Boeing 777-300ER. The change will take effect from December 1, 2015.
Last year's impressive results for Budapest Airport were most significantly boosted by Emirates' launch of daily services to Dubai. And having reached an 80 per cent load factor, carrying more than 55,000 passengers since launching the route last October, demand on the link in the underserved Budapest-Middle East market has been increasing continuously.
Introducing a new three-class rather than a two class product on the flight, upgrading to 777s and adding a first class cabin, clearly shows there are high-yielding passengers emanating from the Hungarian capital and which will help further sustain this route into the future and the potential of perhaps a second daily frequency to meet a second wave of onward connections from Dubai International.
Emirates had planned to introduce a First Class cabin on the route from June 1, 2015 with a switch from a two-class to three-class A330-200, however it’ll continue to operate with the two-class aircraft until the 777 arrives on the city pair.
Speaking to Routesonline just ahead of Routes Middle East and Africa after the schedule change was uploaded to the GDS, Kam Jandu, chief commercial officer, Budapest Airport said: "Given the unprecedented success, and continuous demand, of Emirates' daily service to Dubai calling for the introduction of 777s onto the service, we have a noteworthy message of progress and growth in Budapest."
"We are continuously working to strengthen our long-haul expansion, 2015 is already set to be another huge year for Budapest. Thanks to the immense boost in tourist numbers, driving new airlines to enter and existing ones to expand, we are forecasting further growth to potentially beyond 9.6 million passengers," he added.
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