DUBAI: Emirates Airlines began operations yesterday from the world’s first concourse dedicated to Airbus’ A380 super jumbos at Dubai’s rapidly expanding airport.
Concourse A, which cost $3bn to build, gives Emirates — one of the fastest-growing carriers — an additional airport capacity of 15 million passengers a year, the company said.
The expansion takes place as the CAPA Centre for Aviation said Emirates could become this year the world’s second-biggest carrier in terms of capacity, right after United Airlines, and way ahead of legacy European carriers.
Flight EK003 took off to London Heathrow from Concourse A, which will become “home of the Emirates A380,” Emirates said.
The new extension to Terminal 3, featuring 20 gates specifically designed to accommodate the long-haul planes, will open gradually, with just four gates operational yesterday, Dubai Airports chief executive Paul Griffiths said in another statement.
The government-owned carrier is the largest operator of A380s, with a fleet of 31 and another 59 on order. The new concourse spreads across 11 floors with a total area of 528,000 square metres (5.7 million square feet).
Dubai Airports has earmarked $7.8bn to further expand the capacity of the international travel hub, as it expects to handle 75 million passengers by 2015 and 98 million by 2020. It expected the number of passengers who used Dubai International airport in 2012 to be around 57 million.
The new facility will be available to A380 flights to Europe operated by Australia’s Qantas, as per the global partnership announced recently and awaiting the approval of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, Emirates said.
Emirates has a fleet of 195 wide-body Airbus and Boeing, and has some 204 units on orders worth more than $74bn, it said. It flies to 128 destinations in 74 countries. The carrier, which began operations in 1985 with two leased planes, has become a major competitor of legacy airlines, turning Dubai into a major transit hub for travel between Europe, Asia and Australasia.
Sydney-based CAPA said this week Emirates remained last year third in global ranking of world’s airlines by capacity, with 4.993 billion available seat kilometres.
AFP
