Abdul Basit
Emirates airline on Thursday announced that it will offer flights from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad for travellers from Pakistan who wish to connect onwards to other Emirates destinations starting from June 8, 2020.
Following the UAE government’s announcement to lift restrictions on transit passenger services, Emirates will also offer passenger services to 16 more cities from June 15 on its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. With travel restrictions remaining in place in most countries, customers are reminded to check entry and exit requirements before their journeys.
Flights to the following cities will be available for booking on emirates.com or via travel agents: Bahrain, Manchester, Zurich, Vienna, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Dublin, New York JFK, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Jakarta, Taipei, Hong Kong, Perth and Brisbane.
In addition, from June 8, Emirates will offer flights from Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad for travellers from Pakistan who wish to connect onwards to other Emirates destinations.
With this latest announcement, Emirates will be offering flights for passengers on the back of its scheduled cargo operations from Dubai to 29 cities, including existing flights to London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Chicago, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne and Manila (from June 11).
Customers can book to fly between destinations in the Asia Pacific and Europe or the Americas, with a convenient connection in Dubai, as long as they meet travel and immigration entry requirements of their destination country.
The UAE’s two leading carriers, Emirates and Etihad, on Thursday announced that they will be linking 49 destinations across Asia, Europe and Australia in the next 10 days as airlines increase flights and resume transits with the easing of restrictions on air travel.
The UAE government on Wednesday decided to resume transit flights by national carriers Etihad, Emirates, Fly Dubai and Air Arabia via Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah airports.
Emirates will be operating passenger flights to 29 destinations and Etihad will fly to 20 destinations. But the numbers are expected increase substantially in coming weeks as Emirates plans to add 50 destinations in this month while budget carriers flydubai and Air Arabia could also resume regular flights.
Other destinations where it is operating are London Heathrow, Frankfurt, Paris, Milan, Madrid, Chicago, Toronto, Sydney, Melbourne and Manila.
“Customers can book to fly between destinations in the Asia-Pacific and Europe or the Americas, with a convenient connection in Dubai, as long as they meet travel and immigration entry requirements of their destination country,” the Dubai-based carrier said.
Emirates is already offering connecting flights between the UK and Australia.
Abu Dhabi-based Etihad announced that it will be linking 20 cities across Europe, Asia and Australia from June 10. It also recently linked London Heathrow to Australian cities of Melbourne and Sydney via Abu Dhabi.
Transfer connections via Abu Dhabi will now be available from Jakarta, Karachi, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Melbourne, Seoul, Singapore, Sydney, and Tokyo to major cities across Europe including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Brussels, Dublin, Frankfurt, Geneva, London Heathrow, Madrid, Milan, Paris Charles de Gaulle, and Zurich.
“The new transfer services will make it possible for those travelling on the airline’s current network of special flights to connect easily through the UAE capital onwards to key global destinations,” it said.
Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, CEO and chairman of Emirates and chairman of flydubai, welcomed the decision to open up airports for transit flights.
He said in a tweet on Wednesday that flydubai will also shortly announce the resumption of passengers flights to more cities with connections to and through Dubai.
The budget carrier is currently operating only special repatriation flights to around 11 destinations.
