Emirate and Etihad are launching new flights and larger planes to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, as the international border opens on February 21. Emirates has announced its second daily flight on the Sydney-Dubai route will start in March, just weeks after it boosted capacity on its daily Melbourne flight by 50 per cent when it upgraded to the A380 aircraft.The A380 aircraft will fly an extra seven flights a week, from March 1, and is part of the airline’s plans to increase services to meet the travel hunger of Australians, who have been kept at home for two years by the Covid pandemic.Emirates is also boosting flights to Brisbane from March 1 with daily flights from Dubai and the Queensland capital, also on the larger A380. The aircraft change and frequency increase will mean about 3,000 additional seats per week for both inbound and outbound travellers.“We are also thrilled to see the A380’s return to Brisbane, making it the latest addition to our A380 network and making it our third point in the country to once again be served by our iconic aircraft. With the latest changes we have introduced to our operations in Australia, travellers to and from Brisbane will have more opportunities for leisure and business travel,” Barry Brown, Emirates Divisional Vice President for Australasia said.Etihad Airways is also set to increase flights by offering daily flights between Abu Dhabi to Melbourne and Sydney.Etihad Airways Vice President Sales – Australia and New Zealand, Sarah Built, expects the routes to quickly recover from the Covid-induced slump.“Etihad is excited to ramp up services to Melbourne and Sydney at the end of March, and it’s the perfect timing given the reopening of Australia’s borders and Etihad celebrating 15 years of operations to Australia,” she said.“Close to 900,000 travellers flew with Etihad to and from Australia in 2019, with Melbourne and Sydney both being some of the best-performing routes in Etihad’s global network, and Etihad is confident that the market will continue to recover as Covid-19 recedes,” Ms Built said.Meanwhile, Qantas will keep flying its double daily direct flights from Australia to London via Darwin following ongoing uncertainty around the reopening of the West Australian border and testing requirements for passengers transiting through Singapore.The Perth to London service was scheduled to revert to operating via Perth in April, but with the West Australian Government yet to confirm a reopening date for the state, Qantas will continue to operate the route via Darwin until at least June 2022.
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