Emirates Descends on Scandinavia

Emirates Airline is to inaugurate its first scheduled flights into Scandinavia with the launch of a daily Dubai – Copenhagen flight from August 1. Like most of its new routes, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier will use an Airbus A330-200 on the daily link, configured in a low density, three-class seating arrangement, but it is already planning to upgrade the route to a Boeing 777-200ER from February 1, 2012.

The confirmation of the new service comes almost two years after Emirates first announced its intent to fly to the Danish city. The route is already served by SAS Scandinavian Airlines, which offers four flights per week using a A340-300. Emirates’ use of a high-density A330 will more than double the number of weekly seats available on the route; a figure which will rise further once the 777-200ER comes on-line next year. Interestingly, SAS accounted for just 32 per cent of the 50,000 passengers that travelled between Dubai and Copenhagen in the 12 months ending November 2010, according to IATA BSP data, with the remaining two-thirds travelling via another city. Austrian Airlines held the largest share of this market with 21 per cent of the total traffic routing via its Vienna base.

Source: IATA BSP for year ending November 2010

As the above table illustrates, Sweden is actually the largest market for O+D traffic between the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Scandinavia, although the Dubai – Copenhagen route has largest city-to-city demand from the region. “Copenhagen is an important hub for the whole of Scandinavia and the launch of our non-stop service will open up a new market for Emirates. It will also offer Denmark’s businesses with easy connections to previously untapped markets," said His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline & Group.

Dubai and Copenhagen both have a strong maritime and trading tradition and that will help generate further traffic, while Emirates’ network links from Dubai to destinations across Asia, Africa and the Middle East will certainly bring some additional traffic to the route with passengers connecting via Dubai rather than another European hub.