Emirates to fly one-off A380 service to Pakistan’s Islamabad

Dubai airline Emirates has announced plans to deploy a one-off A380 service to Pakistan’s capital Islamabad on July 8, 2018.

The double-decker jet will make its inaugural arrival in Islamabad on a special flight EK2524/EK2525, a statement said.

The A380 flight will depart Dubai at 8.00 am and arrive in Islamabad at 12.10pm. The flight will depart the Pakistani capital at 3.40pm, arriving in Dubai at 5.45pm on the same day.

The aircraft deployed for the service will be in a two-class configuration offering business and economy class seats.

“While this is a special flight, we are very keen to launch a scheduled A380 service to Pakistan and will continue to work with authorities to realise these plans,” said Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, divisional senior vice president Commercial Operations Centre, Emirates.

Emirates began operations to Pakistan over 30 years ago, with the airline’s first flight landing in Karachi on October 25, 1985.

Since then, the carrier has expanded its operations to several major cities in Pakistan including Karachi, Lahore, Islamabad, Peshawar, Sialkot and Multan.

Emirates’ loyalty programme Skywards also has more than 400,000 Pakistani members, the airline confirmed.

The world’s largest operator of the Airbus A380 jet, Emirates currently has 104 of the aircraft in service and 58 pending delivery. The airline also recently announced a $16bn (Dhs58.7bn) deal for 36 additional Airbus A380 aircraft.

The airline flies the jumbo jet to 48 destinations globally, and also operates one-off A380 services to some of its destinations. Earlier this week, Emirates also flew its A380 on a one-off service to Muscat to mark 25 years of operations to Oman.

With a flying time of less than an hour, the flight was one of the shortest undertaken on an A380 aircraft.

Read more: Emirates flies one-off A380 jet to Muscat