Emirates axes Adelaide
Emirates has dropped Adelaide for the foreseeable future.
By David Flynn, July 7 2020
Emirates is pulling out of Adelaide, with the City of Churches listed as one of many worldwide destinations dropped for the foreseeable future due to the impacts of Covid-19.
A spokesman for the airline confirmed the decision to Executive Traveller, describing Adelaide was "one amongst many cities where Emirates operations remain suspended due to ongoing travel or flight restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic."
"We hope to restart our operations in Adelaide when it is commercially and operationally feasible to do so in the future."
Emirates still flies to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane, albeit currently on a weekly schedule, and says that in future it will "remain committed to serving our customers in Adelaide via our codeshare partner Qantas."
Other top-tier international airlines which connect Adelaide to Europe and the UK include Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways.
More to follow...
David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
06 Oct 2017
Total posts 37
Not particularly surprising given the current environment and really only an a formal extension of what is already occuring. We're seeing CX fly in via Sydney simply for freight and a weekly SQ flight now essentially for freight also (although they did fly in 49 people this AM). QR has also been understandably MIA for quite some time too.
The bulk volume of people returning into Aus have been doing so into the east coast and of those who have returned to Aus via Adelaide a vast number have been heading back east when their quarantine was up.
17 Jun 2020
Total posts 247
A shame for competition. However, even before Covid-19, there wasn't enough room for both QR and EK in the ADL market (BITRE had load factors in the 60s, sometimes lower). Looks like EK blinked before QR. The EK product was also uncompetitive and usually much more expensive compared to the QR A350.
I think EK might come back once they get their 787s and 350s.
13 Apr 2020
Total posts 5
A shame, but more so in terms of the loss of cargo capacity if they withdraw for (say) 12-18 months. I don't think their cramped product will be missed. The real loss would be if Singapore Airlines temporarily swaps out their Adelaide flights for a Scoot service.
Thai Airways International - Royal Orchid Plus
15 Jan 2013
Total posts 451
i have done qatar a350 to europe in 2019 connecting to the a330 going to budapest but coming out of munich on a 777.went with them as it was $900 cheaper than emirates and service was excellent.schedules were better on qr than ek even if it meant leaving germany being up at a terrible hour to leave for the airport.
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