Emirates unveils new California routes serving Middle East and India.
Laura Del Rosso, Travel Weekly, 6/23/2008 (excerpted)
Editor's Note: On June 25, Travel Weekly reported that, due to a delay in delivery of galley equipment, Emirates Airlines has rescheduled the inaugural flight to Dubai from Los Angeles for October 1, and from San Francisco for November 20.
SAN FRANCISCO -- Emirates' new nonstop flights from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Dubai will link the U.S. West Coast not only to the Middle East but to destinations in India, for which there is strong demand from business and ethnic travelers, one of the airline's U.S.-based executives said.
The flights from the West Coast will offer convenient connections to other parts of the Middle East, India and Africa, said Nigel Page, senior vice president of commercial operations for the Americas. Northern California has a large Indian population, and business traffic between the Silicon Valley technology hub and booming cities in India continues to grow, he said.
After establishing gateways in New York and Houston, "it was obvious that the next part of the U.S. where we needed to be was the West Coast," Page said during a promotional tour here.
Los Angeles and Dubai also have a business link because they are important centers for the international film industry, he said.
Page estimated that about 65% of travel on the new San Francisco flight will originate in Northern California, and the rest will be inbound. The vast majority of travelers will be traveling for business or visiting friends and relatives in India and other destinations that Emirates serves, he said. Dubai itself has a large expatriate community, including some 28,000 Americans.
Emirates will start daily service from Los Angeles on Sept. 1 using a Boeing 777-200LR on the route with 266 seats in a three-class configuration. San Francisco service is scheduled to start Oct. 26 with the same type of aircraft and configuration.
Flight times to Dubai from the West Coast will be about 16 hours.
First A380 in U.S.
As part of its expansion this year, Emirates will become the first airline to operate the double-decker Airbus 380 to a U.S. airport when it switches to that aircraft on its New York-Dubai route Aug. 1. Page said he could not comment on the A380's onboard product, which won't be disclosed until July 28, when the airline receives its first A380 from Airbus' Hamburg, Germany, plant.
From Aug. 8, Emirates will operate its A380 three times a week on the route.
The aircraft are also scheduled to operate on Emirates' routes from Dubai to London and Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand, later this year.
In other news, the airline launched Dubai-Cape Town, South Africa, service March 30 and will start service in July from Dubai to Kozhikode, India, and Guangzhou, China.