Emirates continues its network expansion – this time targeting Porto in Portugal as a new destination.
Emirates Boeing 777-300ER at Hamburg Airport – Image, Economy Class and Beyond.
This will be Emirates second destination in Portugal, and will be served four times a week from the 2nd July 2019,
Planned operation of the route is as follows
EK197 DEPART DXB 09:15 ARRIVE OPO 14:30 EK198 DEPART OPO 17:35 ARRIVE DXB 04:15+1 Commences 2nd July 2019 Operates Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays Booked Equipment: Emirates Three-Class Boeing 777-300ER Data: Emirates
The Porto service will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER, configured with:
- 8 First Class Suites
- 42 Business Class lie-flat seats
- 310 Economy Class seats.
The new service will open up connectivity in Northern Portugal – negating the need to go to Lisbon. It opens up Vigo, Santiago de Compostela as well as Porto itself, whilst the connection bank at Dubai should allow passengers to connect to Emirates African, Asian and Australian networks with ease.
In quotes
Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline
“Porto is currently enjoying increased levels of tourism, which is also reflective of the growth in the number of visitors to Portugal as a whole. The introduction of this new flight, along with our twice daily Lisbon service, will help meet this growing demand from both leisure and business travellers, as well as provide them with more choice, flexibility and connectivity when travelling to and from Portugal,” .
Filling in the gaps
Expansion is something airlines need to do to drive further traffic and grow its network. But just as important is to examine where that demand is. Whilst Emirates operate a double-daily service from Lisbon, that does have issues (such as the 2 and a half to 3 hour train journey, or a 50 minute TAP Express flight) to get between the cities.
Whilst not a full daily service, Porto does have a lot of traffic – leisure, scheduled and low-cost carrier. Combined with local communities and ease to the north of Portugal, this should be a tempting option for some flyers in the area.
And for those who care – it opens up that wondrous thing – connectivity.
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