Dubai’s Emirates to resume flights to Istanbul Sabiha Gokcen Airport

Dubai carrier Emirates has announced that it will resume flights to Istanbul’s Sabiha Gokcen Airport in June.

The return of the service follows the cancellation of flights in July 2016 following a failed coup attempt by military factions in Turkey

Its June 8 return will mean Emirates flies again to both of Istanbul’s main airports.

The route will be operated five times a week by a Boeing 777-300eR in a three cabin configuration with eight first class, 42 business class and 310 economy class seats.

This will increase Emirates’ weekly flights to Istanbul to 16 with 6,500 seats.

EK119 will leave Dubai at 10am and arrive in Istanbul at 1:45pm. Return flight EK120 will leave Istanbul at 3:45pm and arrive in Dubai at 9pm.

“We’ve seen continued growth in travel demand to and from Istanbul over the past year and are therefore pleased to be able to offer passengers travelling with Emirates the choice of two destinations in the city,” said Hubert Frach, Emirates divisional senior vice president, commercial operations, West.

Emirates said the Boeing 777 would offer 100 tonnes of cargo capacity a week and make it the only carrier operating a scheduled wide-body service to Sabiha Gokcen.

The carrier’s partner and sister airline Flydubai also flies to the airport on a codeshare route with Emirates.

Read: Emirates, flydubai announce new codeshare routes