EmirAtEs cArriEd 59M pAssEngErs in 2018
DUBAI — Emirates has announced that it carried over 59 million passengers on around 3,700 passenger flights on average per week in 2018.
“We had our challenges in 2018, however we continued to maximise opportunities by deploying our capacity to best serve customer demand, keeping a close watch on our costs, utilising technology to improve business performance, as well as developing more customercentric products and services to provide our passengers with greater choice,” said Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline.
Recent data revealed that Emirates operated over 192,000 flights, with its fleet of 274 aircraft travelling more than 908 million kilometres around the globe in 2018. The airline served a diverse menu of over 66 million meals on its flights departing Dubai, and moved close to 36 million pieces of baggage in Dubai to its global network of 157 destinations.
The year began with Emirates setting out on a $150 million programme to refurbish its Boeing 777-200LR fleet. These 10 newly refurbished aircraft brought airier and more spacious cabins throughout the aircraft. Emirates is now planning for the next generation cabin design of its Boeing 777X programme.
In January, the airline also announced a $16 billion deal for 36 additional Airbus A380 aircraft, to be delivered to Emirates from 2020 onwards. Emirates also expanded the number of cities served by its popular A380 aircraft to 50 destinations with the recent launch of scheduled services to Hamburg and Osaka. The airline also led one-off A380 services to five cities: Beirut, Muscat, Islamabad, Riyadh and Accra, and temporary services to St. Petersburg.
As the airline received new aircraft, four new routes were launched, frequencies were added
to 20 destinations, and capacity to eight cities was upgraded. Emirates expanded its UK footprint with the launch of services to London Stansted and Edinburgh, and enhanced long-haul connectivity to South America with the launch of flights to Santiago de Chile. The airline also launched DubaiBali-Auckland services, which has become the only year around non-stop daily flight between Bali and Auckland.
Emirates also extended its partnership with flydubai to expand access to its customers to a combined network of 206 unique points, and over one million passengers have booked their travel on combined Emirates and flydubai itineraries as a result.