Emirates shifts NY A380 jets to Toronto and Bangkok

Starting from April, Emirates would stop flying its two Airbus A380 aircraft on the New York JFK route, having started the service on the route eight months ago.

The two aircraft would be redeployed this summer to Toronto and Bangkok.

In June, the airline plans to allocate one of the two A380s currently serving New York to its thrice-weekly route to Toronto, while the second superjumbo will be placed into service on one of the Emirates' twice-daily flights to Bangkok.

"Effective from June 1, 2009, two of Emirates' Airbus A380 aircraft, currently operating on one of the two daily Dubai-New York JFK services, will be redeployed to the three-times weekly Dubai-Toronto service and to one of the two daily Dubai-Bangkok services," an Emirates spokesperson told Emirates Business.

"The A380 will be replaced by the B777-300ER on the New York route decreasing daily capacity by 132 seats," the spokesperson added.

According to industry sources, Emirates' sudden change in A380 capacity shift stems from the fact that the airline had been running only half of the capacity it had anticipated on the New York route.

The airline's spokesperson, meanwhile, said: "As the global economy has affected international air travel, this aircraft redeployment was based solely on a change in capacity demands in these three markets.

"When economic conditions improve, we anticipate demand will be restored on the Dubai-New York JFK service, at which time Emirates will certainly evaluate redeploying the A380 on this route."

Asked if this suspension applied to all of Emirates' A380 flights to the US, the Emirates' spokesperson said: "No, this change in aircraft will not affect any other US services as the airline still plans to increase the Los Angeles and San Francisco services to a daily frequency beginning from May 1, 2009."

Meanwhile, the airline's Dubai-Toronto service has had consistently strong demand since the three-times weekly route was launched in October 2007, according to Emirates' President Tim Clark.

"In fact, the demand has been so high it will only allow Emirates to address some of the unmet need of the Toronto market," Clark said.

The airline, meanwhile, is aggressively seeking rights to fly daily into Toronto. Clark said he remains hopeful that the Canadian government will allow additional service to Canada to meet the demand for passenger and cargo traffic.

"By adding this new ultra-efficient aircraft to Toronto, we are increasing trade and tourism capacity, but the three-flights-a-week restriction remains a disappointment. We believe Toronto needs a daily A380 service and progressively, a second daily service with an aircraft like the Boeing 777," he said, adding that despite the current economic difficulties, this is good news for the Canadian economy.

Emirates also said recently it plans to provide direct flights from Dubai to two more Canadian cities – Calgary and Vancouver. The airline said Dubai has been one of Canada's fastest growing export markets in recent years and Emirates has been lobbying for additional access to Toronto for a decade. "The launch of the Dubai-Toronto A380 service means we will continue to invest in Canada, one of our most important markets," Clark said.

Emirates' move to shift A380 capacity comes two days after the airline aired concerns to the European planemaker about reliability issues in its A380 fleet.

While Airbus said it is working "intensively" to resolve problems with A380 aircraft owned by Emirates, the airline, with 54 superjumbos on order, said its confidence in the superjumbo remains unchanged.

Emirates said it is on track to receive seven of the superjumbos by the end of its next financial year ending March 31, 2010, with plans to launch the A380 flights between Dubai and South Korea (Seoul) in November this year, followed by Singapore in December with the initial schedule running four times weekly.

Having recently added Sydney and Auckland routes on its A380 network, Emirates continues to fly a daily A380 service to London Heathrow.

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