Emirates’ A380s fly to Johannesburg

DUBAI Emirates has announced that it will upgrade one of its four daily flights between Dubai and Johannesburg to an Airbus A380-800 effective 1 February 2017.

Emirates currently uses Boeing 777 aircraft for each of the four daily flights between the two cities, making it the busiest route in the airline’s African network with over 3 million passengers carried in the last five years.

Johannesburg will join more than 40 destinations in Emirates’ global network that is served by A380 aircraft.

The A380 will be configured with 516 seats in three classes — 14 private suites in first class, 76 mini pods with lie-flat seats in business class and 426 seats in economy.

It will be deployed on the first flight of the day, EK761, and will depart Dubai at 0440 and arrive in Johannesburg at 1055. The return flight, EK762, will depart Johannesburg at 1325 and arrive in Dubai at 2345.

The airline was named the World’s Best Airline 2016 and the airline with the World’s Best Inflight Entertainment at the prestigious Skytrax World Airline Awards recently.

Emirates first started services to South Africa 21 years ago and in addition to the four daily flights between Dubai and Johannesburg, it also offers three daily flights between Dubai and Cape Town, and a daily flight between Dubai and Durban, enabling global connectivity for South African travellers through its worldwide network of more than 150 destinations.

The A380 service will be operated as codeshare with South African Airways as with all other Emirates’ services to South Africa.