Emirates Starts A380 Dallas Flights

Emirates launched its first scheduled daily A380 service to Dallas Fort Worth International Airport early this morning.

The superjumbo on this route is the airline’s slightly smaller configured A380 which seats 489 passengers — 14 in first class private suites, 76 lie-flat beds in business and 399 in economy.

Oubound service EK221 departs Dubai at 0245 and arrives in Dallas at 0945 the same day, while return flight EK222 departs Dallas at 1235 and lands in Dubai at 1220 the following day.

Business traffic is likely to be strong, given that Dallas Fort Worth is home to 18 Fortune 500 companies.

Emirates has been keen to fly the A380 to Dallas for some time but the airport couldn’t accommodate it, and so it’s been operating a B777-200LR since February 2012. Dallas’ terminals have since been upgraded.

It’s a significant week for Emirates’ global partner Qantas too, as it launched the world’s longest A380 route, a 8,755-mile journey between Sydney and Dallas Fort Worth.

Emirates now serves more than 30 destinations with its 53 A380s and Dallas becomes the seventh in 2014, following Barcelona, London Gatwick, Zurich, Kuwait, Mumbai and Frankfurt.

The Dubai carrier also operated a ‘one off’ A380 to Tehran today and announced it will fly another special A380 service to Manila on October 7 to mark its move to Terminal 3 at Ninoy Aquino International Airport.