Emirates to fly A380 to Guangzhou

Badr Abbas, senior vice president for commercial operations in the Far East at Emirates Airlines remarked during the announcement that "Guangzhou is a potential destination for the two-class A380".

The carrier is awaiting Chinese government approval to deploy the world's largest jumbo jet, which can seat 615 people in a dual business and economy configuration, replacing the Boeing Co 777-300 ER the airline now uses on its daily Guangzhou flight.

On the other hand, according to a report published by Gulf News, Chinese airlines including Air China, China Eastern Airlines Corp and Hainan Airlines Co are enhancing their networks.

Chinese airlines are adding international connections to major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. Whereas Emirates is banking on connecting air traffic into Dubai hub, which will refuel flights to Africa, Europe and further.

Chinese airlines have more market share as they offer direct flights and suitable flight times. The number of Chinese passengers flying to Dubai grew 25 percent during the financial year ending March 2015.

Emirates is flying 35 weekly flights in the mainland Chinese market. The load factor on these routes is encouragingly 84 percent. Eliminating first class, Emirates has only two class configuration on route to Guangzhou..

Meanwhile, Emirates has added a third flight to Riyadh from 15 December 2015 onwards as per Emirates. With this, Emirates will run three flights a day to Riyadh taking the total number of flights services to 21 per week. About 450,000 passengers travelled on Dubai-Riyadh route this year so far.

This facilitates Emirates to cater to the larger percentage of business and leisure travelers. Emirates Airlines is awaiting Chinese government's approval for adding new routes. It's also waiting for the outcome from the ongoing talks between the UAE and the Chinese government.

Guangzhou has strong business relations with Africa. Guangzhou city offers traffic for Emirates to African cities in addition to the Middle East and Europe. Chinese government-run China Southern Airlines recently commenced service of direct flights from Guangzhou to Nairobi.

Abbas further said, "We have good growth in the Chinese market and we're seeking to grow our capacity. The A380 is key for us to grow. The airline can raise its China capacity by 46 percent without adding any more airport slots."

According to a report published by The National, Dubai-based Emirates posted Dh3.1 billion profit for the first half of 2015 as lower fuel cost and high air traffic helped in enhancing revenues. However, the surge in the US dollar is affecting its financial performance.

Emirates Airlines is offering two daily flights from Beijing and Shanghai. Now, it wants to deploy more A380s on routes from Dubai to Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

The Tier-II cities in China such as Chengdu are also attracting major airlines. Several Chinese airlines are including such cities in their expansion plan. The expansion of Chinese airlines will pose tough competition to Emirates Airlines in the days to come.