Emirates upgrades Dublin aircraft to handle demand

The Emirates airline is set to upgrade its Dublin aircraft to cope with unprecedented demand for the first direct Dublin to Dubai route.

After three weeks of the airline launching the first direct route from Dublin to Dubai, Emirates said the route has already become one of the airline’s most successful route launches.

The new passenger service has load factors exceeding 90% for many flights leading the airline to deploy a larger aircraft on the route from July.

The daily Dubai-Dublin service is currently operated with a 237-seat Airbus A330-200, arranged in a three class configuration.

Emirates’ senior vice president Salem Obaidalla said normally, this would provide enough capacity for the first two to three years of a new route operation. However he said Dublin “is exceeding our expectations much faster than was predicted and we need more seats to satisfy demand.”.

From July onwards, the replacement Boeing 777-300ER will be deployed providing a total of 360 seats, an increase in capacity of 52%.

The Boeing offers 310 seats in economy class, 42 in business and eight first-class private suites.

Mr Obaidalla said: “A bigger aircraft means more good news for the Irish economy. We can bring extra visitors to the country and carry additional cargo. The A330-200 can carry up to 15 tonnes of cargo in the belly hold — this figure rises to 25 tonnes with the introduction of the 777.”