Emirates adds another service to Rome, goes after Etihad

There’s going to be one heck of a capacity boost to Rome, with Emirates adding a third daily service between Rome-FCO and Dubai this winter.

The two services that currently operate to Rome utilise a pair of Airbus A380 aircraft on this route (which has around 517 seats in the high density version of the aircraft, 489 seats in the low density version).

Emirates Airbus A380 preparing to take off at Heathrow – Image, GhettoIFE

It seems this is not enough passenger uplift, as the airline will deploy a third daily service – operating the EK99/EK100 rotation. This will use a slightly smaller Boeing 777-300 aircraft from October 2014.

The combined timetable is shown below:

Dubai – Rome-FCO

EK099 DEPART DXB 03:55 ARRIVE FCO 07:35 Boeing 777-300
EK097 DEPART DXB 09:10 ARRIVE FCO 12:40 Airbus A380
EK095 DEPART DXB 15:05 ARRIVE FCO 18:45 Airbus A380

Commences 26th October 2014 with extra service
Equipment booked as per flight
Operates Daily

EK098 DEPART FCO 14:40 ARRIVE DXB 23:20 Airbus A380
EK100 DEPART FCO 11:00 ARRIVE DXB 19:35 Boeing 777-300
EK096 DEPART FCO 20:45 ARRIVE DXB 05:30+1 Airbus A380

Commences 26th October 2014 with extra service
Equipment booked as per flight
Operates Daily
Data: AirlineRoute

So, why an extra service? Lets look to last weeks news where Etihad is to take 49% share in Alitalia, and boosting its services from Rome, as well as other Italian regional destinations. What we have here is a mixture of capacity increase and Emirates countermanding the move that Etihad has made.

Whilst I wouldn’t expect a fare war, there is an amount of capacity dumping appearing on this route which could start some interesting price appear in the future.

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