Emirates tips Birmingham Airport to have a strong decade as it launches new flight

AIRLINE Emirates is to launch a third daily service from Birmingham to Dubai from August.

The news comes as the airline revealed that in the financial year ending in March 2015, 527,974 passengers flew on its services between Dubai and Birmingham – the highest number since it started operations from the local airport in 2000.

Emirates currently operates two daily flights between Birmingham and Dubai which depart at 14:20 and 21:20. The new flight will take off at 09.10.

The new flight will offer a first class option for the first time on the Birmingham-Dubai route.

Since the introduction of its first flight into the region in December 2000, Emirates has carried five million passengers between Dubai and Birmingham (including return), 30% of which travelled during the last three years.
 
The most popular onward destinations for Midlands based travellers on Emirates include Dubai, Australia, India, Singapore, Thailand and Hong Kong.

Laurie Berryman, Emirates vice president, UK, said: “As a central location in the UK and key network for passengers and cargo, Birmingham is a vital regional hub for Emirates.

“Having recently surpassed a major milestone by celebrating five million passengers on the airline, Birmingham’s enthusiasm for both global travel and commerce has led to significant growth for our operation in the West Midlands.”

On a visit to the West Midlands, Berryman said: “Birmingham has proved to us that there is a long-haul market from here and that will continue to grow.

“I think Birmingham will have a very strong decade. Nothing new will be built in the South East for at least ten years and and there’s no reason why Birmingham can’t get to 15m-20m passengers in that time.”

Commenting on the idea that the local airport should be re-named Birmingham Shakespeare to position it better in the minds of foreign tourists, Berryman said he thought it was “quite a good idea”.

He added: “We find that in-bound tourists only know one city and that’s London. Two, perhaps, if you count Edinburgh.

“There is lot of ignorance in the rest of the world about anything in the UK outside London.”

Meanwhile, the airline has also announced that its freight operation Emirates SkyCargo, which began its operation in the region in 2005, has been a success, recording a growth of 223% over ten years.

In 2014 alone, 13m kgs of cargo was carried in and out of Birmingham.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jaguar Land Rover – which has a distribution base in Dubai – is the airline’s’ largest customer for this service. 

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