With rumors indicating Emirates is in a difficult financial situation with suspended India flights and may have asked the UAE government for a possible bailout, the approach to survive is not cutting routes, but expansion. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, CEO of Emirates puts a new focus on Italy in creating new flights from Dubai to Venice and Milan, among other markets to be announced.
- Emirates in rough waters over suspended flights to India flights, the main feeder and transit market for the Dubai based carrier. The airline may have contemplated government bailouts is the rumor.
- Emirates will resume flights between Dubai and Venice from 1 July
- According to HRH Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, CEO of Emirates, these flights will Increase trade and tourism connectivity between the UAE and Italy.
The airline will also increase services to Milan from 8 to 10 weekly flights in July. This will comprise of a daily service on the Dubai-Milan-New York JFK route, and a 3-weekly return flights between Dubai and Milan. Together with Emirates’ 5 weekly flights to Rome and 3 weekly flights to Bologna, this will take the airline’s total services to Italy to 21 weekly flights to 4 cities in July. Emirates will serve Venice, Milan, Rome and Bologna with its modern and comfortable widebody Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
Emirates’ expansion of flight services in Italy follows the start of “Covid-Tested flight”arrangements, which allow its passengers to travel to Italy without quarantine on arrival.
His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Emirates Chairman and Chief Executive said: “We welcome the Covid-Tested flight arrangements and would like to thank the Italian and UAE authorities for their ongoing efforts to ease and facilitate international travel. The UAE has a strong and longstanding relationship with Italy and the safe return of air connectivity will help boost mutual trade and tourism. As a global commercial hub, and home to people from more than 200 nations, Dubai and the UAE have spared no effort to keep communities safe from the pandemic – from our world-leading vaccination programme to our bio-safety protocols across all sectors including recreation and entertainment facilities, to schools, businesses and airports. We hope that more countries will consider similar arrangements to facilitate quarantine-free travel.”
Effective 2 June, Emirates customers travelling to Italy aged 2 years and above, are required to hold a negative COVID-19 PCR-RT or Rapid Antigen test result valid for 48 hours prior to departure. Travellers must also take a Rapid Antigen swab test on arrival in Italy, at their own cost. For more details on entry requirements to Italy, customers can check the travel requirements page on emirates.com.
With missing connectivity between Dubai and many Indian cities, Emirates is in a difficult position with such missing transit travel. India has been hit by a strain of COVID-19 infections, promoting Emirates to suspend operation to this country of more than 1 billion people until June 30.
Emirates remains focused on taking various steps to ease travel and has been a leader in introducing initiatives in cooperation with health authorities and organisations to protect the health of customers and to ensure their safety. Emirates introduced measures on the ground throughout all touchpoints and onboard to provide its passengers with the highest safety and hygiene standards at every step of the journey. The airline has also recently introduced contactless technologyto ease the customer journey through Dubai airport.
Knowing their safety and wellbeing is looked after, customers across all classes can enjoy more than 4,500 channels of entertainment on ice, the airline’s award-winning inflight entertainment system, along with regionally inspired gourmet meals.
Emirates continues to lead the industry with innovative products and services that address traveller needs during a dynamic time. Recently the airline took its customer care initiatives further with even more generous and flexible booking policies, an extension of its multi-risk insurance cover, and helping loyal customers retain their miles and tier status.
