Emirates to cut New York capacity

AIRBUS A380: Emirates to redeploy two aircraft from New York route to Toronto and Bangkok. (Getty Images)

Emirates will stop flying its two Airbus A380 aircraft on the New York JFK route from April, having only started the service just eight months ago. The aircraft instead will 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, according to Emirates Business.

"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 the newspaper.

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

"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," the spokesperson added.

Asked if this suspension applied to all of Emirates' A380 flights to the US, the spokesperson told Emirates Business: "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.

The airline 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 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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