Thursday 21 November 2019

Emirates drops Brisbane to Singapore sector

EMIRATES A380-842 A6-EUU (CN 238)
















Emirates will cease flying the Brisbane-Singapore route from the 30th March, 2020. This Emirates fifth-freedom route is currently operated daily as Brisbane-Singapore-Dubai using a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft. Emirates will retain its daily Brisbane-Dubai direct flight, and Qantas will still fly from Brisbane to Singapore beyond the 30th March 2020. The Dubai-based airline had initially revealed its intention to withdraw from the Brisbane-Singapore route in September, claiming it was losing money. However, this required the approval of the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) because Qantas and Emirates had voluntarily agreed to increase capacity on the airlines’ overlapping routes between Australia and Singapore when the Qantas-Emirates alliance was formed in 2013. This was part of the basis on which the CCCS had approved the alliance in 2013, so Emirates needed to gain approval to reduce capacity. The CCCS yesterday approved Emirates’ withdrawal from the Brisbane-Singapore route as Emirates had provided evidence to support its claims about the route’s lack of profitability. Additionally, the CCCS received no objections. Emirates’ withdrawal will leave Qantas with one daily flight and Singapore Airlines with four daily services on the Brisbane-Singapore route. Flight EK433 departs Brisbane at 2.45am, arriving in Singapore at 8.10am. EK432 leaves Singapore at 10.10am for a 7.45pm landing in Brisbane. Emirates will continue to fly from Melbourne to Singapore. The airline also still has one fifth-freedom flight remaining across the Tasman, from Sydney to Christchurch using the A380. Emirates used to operate many more fifth-freedom flights to Australia, but earlier this year ended flights from Sydney to Bangkok. The daily Emirates A380 flights from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to Auckland also ended in March 2018, with Qantas picking up some of the capacity. In the past, Emirates also flew from Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur.




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