Emirates Increases Flights to Venice; Offers Wi-Fi on A380s

Emirates will start operating double daily flights to Venice from 25th March 2012. Currently, the airline offers a daily service to the destination. Emirates has also announced its plan to provide Internet connection onboard A380s.

Dubai’s flag carrier, Emirates will operate daily double flights to Venice from 25th March next year. Emirates, one of the largest Middle East carriers, started offering flights to the beautiful Italian city in July 2007. And it is worth mentioning that Emirates remains the only airline in the market that runs a non-stop passenger service between Venice-Dubai!

Venice is a popular holiday destination that entices heaps of vacationers every year to start looking for cheap flights to the city. The city is also a commercial hub, bustling with small and medium sized companies. It is these very market segments that the Dubai based airline hopes to cater to with its introductory second daily service.

Emirates’ flight to Venice, EK 137, will depart from the Dubai International Airport at 1545hrs and arrive in Venice at 2000hrs. The return flight, EK 138, will take off from the Venice Marco Polo Airport at 2150hrs and will land in Dubai at 0535hrs the next day.

Emirates will be plying 267-seater Airbus 340-300 on the route. The travel configuration of the aircraft will be three-tier, with first class, business class and economy class options.

“Since launching our third gateway into Italy four years ago, Venice has gone from strength, both on the passenger and cargo side,” Salem Obaidalla, Emirates’ senior vice president, Europe and Russian Federation, was quoted as saying in different news reports.

The announcement of the new daily flight to Venice comes a fortnight after Emirates decided to introduce a 489-seat A380 on one of its double daily flights to Rome. The positioning of the A380 on the popular route will allow travellers to enjoy the charms of the double-decker all the way through to destinations like Australia and Thailand - markets served by the A380. And given the number of seats available for economy class travellers in the world’s largest passenger airliner, the fact that cheap flight tickets will perhaps be easy to grab on the route cannot be completely discounted!

Emirates Launches In-Flight Internet on A380s

Talking of Emirates’ A380, the airline has decided to offer Wi Fi connectivity for its passengers on Airbus A380s. Passengers will now be able to operate Wi Fi enabled devices including smart phones, tablets and laptops in air.

Internet service will be provided by OnAir, with prices starting from US $7.50 for mobile devices and US $15 for laptops.

Travellers who would rather prefer cheap air tickets with Emirates than Wi Fi connectivity must not lose sleep as it is an option ancillary service and the charges for it will not be incorporated in air tickets. Travellers who wish to take advantage of the service would have to pay separately.

Initially, the new Wi-Fi services will launch on 11 of 19 in-service Emirates A380s and gradually it will be installed across its entire fleet of A380s.

Reference