porsche911

Flying for the first and hopefully many to Dubai in October. This route is now always full as it means all travellers from Ireland flying east avoid Euro hubs thankfully.

I as thinking as EK and Ethiad ( now 2 flights a day ) have proven its such a good route will EK ever introduce the A380 from Dublin to Dubai rather than the 777. It would offer passengers a better J lass product as well.

What are your thoughts on same ?

Oh has anybody flown J from Dublin to Dubai? Is it a good service ( seat / food / airport lounge etc ) any info would be great

blagger

The flights might be full but I've heard the yields are low, so while it's a good feeder into the network it doesn't make much money because it's filled with holidaymakers and emigrants, not business people.

I'm amazed they are still using a 3-class plane at all. More often that not first class is empty, business 50% booked and economy overbooked (so it's a good route for upgrades). They often substitute a 2 class plane (adding 68 extra seats). The next 5 days appear to be 2 class.

So the A380 is the wrong plane for Dublin. Maybe a 2-class version might work, but the airport itself isn't ready for A380 anyway.

porsche911

Seems crazy the airport is not ready as the brand new terminal is only finished a few years - if true that's nuts .

CaptainEKAirbus

It's not only the terminal that often needs to be modified to suit the A380, rather the taxiways, runways, and other infrastructure too. Don't forget how heavy the A380 is, it needs to have a taxiway that can support the weight of the airplane.

The Dublin route has been great in terms of loads but no so much yield. I believe that cargo was also performing quite well, but until such time when the airport can handle the A380 and Emirates comes out with a two class variant of the aircraft, I don't think anything with Dublin will change.

father_ted

That tallies perfectly with my experience. Y is heavy, J is OK but competitively priced (compared to UK for example) and I reckon there is just enough F traffic to justify keeping it... about 3-4 revenue F per day. Good news for op-ups...

porsche911

Well the only competition is etihad and the i believe have two flights a day

ayeaway

I don't think they could afford the bar bill and that is why it will never do GLA either.

porsche911

Damn it you are 100 % correct

blagger

If they'd spent tens of millions more making the airport A380-ready on the off-chance that some airline might sometime want to operate an A380 then that would be nuts

ayeaway

My understanding is that the 380 can use any runway taxiway that a 747 can. this was all to prevent the fiasco when the 747 came into service and not that many airports could handle it.

The 747 a beautiful bird was before its time where as the 380 isn't.

WEEBOBBY

An EK A380 is on the way apparently

porsche911

DAA obviously need to get some new air bridges for the a380 sorted out if thats happening for the passangers unless they are going to load everybody through the lower lever ( is that possible)

eternaltransit

Certainly possible - sometimes at DXB they park a full A380 at a remote stand and board it from buses, no air bridges necessary

Stephenk82

It always seems the lunchtime flight DUB-DXB is packed out, and the evening flight has quite a light load, so perhaps greater capacity on the lunchtime flight could be needed. Or maybe that's just how it has fallen on all my flights.

Lounge in Dublin is basic but it's alright, just nothing in comparison to the DXB or Emirates lounges elsewhere. The evening flight is pretty much the last flight of the night, so expect a very quiet airport and lounge. Daytime, the lounge fills up, and you may be a bit close to others, but I've not seen it completely full before.

Food etc ex-DUB same as rest of the Emirates network.

And finally.... It's always nice to hear them welcome you on board or back home with a little bit of Irish - even though I don't speak it I can recognise it. Nice touch!

Just shout if you've any other questions.

modularmayhem

where did you hear this?
Im a regular on the route and would be very happy to hear if this is true