News
Emirates terminates trans-Tasman routes
October 13th 2017
Emirates Airline this week announced it would discontinue its fifth freedom flights from Brisbane and Melbourne to Auckland from March 2018. It dropped Sydney-Auckland in June. Read More »
The Dubai carrier will retain its daily nonstop A380 flights between Dubai and Auckland as well as its daily Dubai to Christchurch via Sydney A380 service. The airline said it is evaluating potential direct flights to New Zealand.
To make up for the massive capacity reduction on the trans-Tasman, Emirates’ alliance partner, Qantas Airways, will increase frequency of its flights between the two countries by adding seven return flights per week between Melbourne and Auckland and an extra two return services per week between Brisbane and Auckland. Some of these services will be up-gauged from a B737 to a wide body A330, although this still pales in comparison with Emirates’ 489-seat A380s.
Last month, Qantas announced it would re-route its Sydney-London service via Singapore again, rather than Dubai, while Emirates would add a fourth daily Sydney-Dubai A380 nonstop service.
Emirates’ capacity rationalization on routes from Australia to New Zealand should be welcomed by Air New Zealand (Air NZ) and Virgin Australia, who have a trans-Tasman joint venture. Air NZ CEO, Christopher Luxon, has repeatedly flagged oversupply as an issue on the trans-Tasman.
