Emirates to add fifth daily flight to Bangkok

Emirates Airline said on Monday that it was planning to add a fifth daily flight to Bangkok at the end of the first quarter of 2013.

The Dubai carrier said it was further strengthening its commitment to South East Asia by adding the extra flight, with the announcement coming just weeks after it launched a daily service between Dubai and Phuket.

From March 31, Emirates will operate 35 flights a week between Dubai and Bangkok, plus a daily Airbus A380 service between Bangkok and Hong Kong, and a daily flight between Bangkok and Sydney, which connects on to Christchurch.

These services, along with the Phuket flights, take the number of weekly Emirates departures from Thailand to 56.

March 31 will also mark the start of the airline’s fourth daily service between Kuala Lumpur and Dubai, while a third daily Manila service started on January 1 and a third daily Jakarta service will commence on March 1.

“Emirates has been operating flights to Bangkok since 1990 and this capacity increase – combined with the launch of the Phuket service in early December - demonstrates what an important market Thailand is to us,” said Salem Obaidalla, Emirates’ senior vice president, Commercial Operations, Far East & Australasia.

“This new service will benefit Thailand’s tourism sector by bringing even more visitors from the likes of the Middle East and traditionally strong markets like Europe and Australasia."

Jabr Al-Azeeby, Emirates’ manager for Thailand and Indochina, added: “The increased frequency on Bangkok-Dubai service is just in time for passengers from Thailand to plan their Songkran holidays and to accommodate the anticipated high demand into Bangkok during the festive period.”

Emirates said in a statement that Thai exporters will also benefit from the new service which will provide an additional 105 tonnes of weekly capacity in each direction and take Emirates SkyCargo’s weekly cargo capacity each way to 750 tonnes.