Emirates will begin flying its A380 to Jeddah daily, following the superjumbo’s successful entrance into the market in February. Ahmed Khoory, Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial Operations Gulf, Middle East and Iran said: “The popularity of the A380 into Jeddah has exceeded our initial expectations. Passenger loads across all three classes are performing extremely well and this is testament to the excellent quality product that we continue to offer our customers.”
 
The A380 is the only three class configuration aircraft to fly into Saudi Arabia, bringing Emirates’ Business Class to the country for the first time.
 
Khoory continued: “The addition of Business Class seats on services to Jeddah has been highly anticipated by the market. The A380 not only gives passengers the opportunity to try our Business Class services but has also increased our overall capacity on this route by 17 percent overall.”
 
From 22nd June Emirates is also increasing its services to Riyadh. The carrier will operate one additional flight per week on a Tuesday, having already added a further three weekly flights for summer, bringing its total weekly services to 11. The four additional summer services will be available up to 30th October.
 
Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of Emirates’ Middle East plans this year with Jeddah the first city in the Middle East, outside of Dubai, to play host to an Emirates A380.  In addition Emirates has recently announced that it will commence a limited service to Al Medinah al Munawarrah from 2nd July to 24th September 2010, catering for increased demand during this peak travel period.
 
“Emirates has been operating flights to the Kingdom since 1989 and we have continued to grow our operations there exponentially year after year. Saudi Arabia is an incredibly important market for Emirates and we will continue to push forward with our development and expansion plans,” concluded Khoory.
 
Emirates operates seven weekly scheduled flights to Jeddah and a total of 21 scheduled weekly flights to Saudi Arabia.