Dubai-based international airline Emirates today

announced it will launch non-stop services to the city of Venice, its

third Italian destination after Milan and Rome, from July 2007.

The service, initially five-times-a-week on Mondays, Tuesdays,

Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, will increase two months later to a

daily service.

Emirates will operate an Airbus

A330-200 on the route, offering 27 Business class seats, and 251 in

Economy; plus 13 tonnes of bellyhold space for cargo.

Providing convenient connections to travellers flying on all Emirates

flights from New Zealand,

flight EK135 is scheduled to depart Dubai

at 9:45 am, arriving in Venice at 2:15 pm on the same day. The

return flight EK136 will leave Venice at 3:45 pm, arriving in Dubai

at 11:35 that same evening.

Emirates’ Dubai-Venice flight will create a new non-stop connection that

is expected to foster a greater flow of tourism and business traffic

between one of the Middle East’s fastest-developing leisure and business

hubs, and the thriving commercial region of Veneto in northern Italy.

HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive,

Emirates Airline and Group said: “We are delighted to have the

opportunity to expand our services to Italy and are pleased to offer a

new direct link between Dubai and Venice.

“Venice is a popular tourism destination and an important gateway in

northern Italy for commerce. Our new service will contribute to Italy’s

many flourishing small and medium-sized businesses by providing

increased access from Venice to other major cities around the globe via

Dubai, and vice-versa. Our flights will also provide added capacity for

the transportation of goods vital to Italian industries.”

Emirates Airline currently operates daily flights to Rome and Milan with

wide-bodied Boeing 777 and Airbus 330-200 aircraft. One of the world’s

fastest growing and most successful airlines, Emirates flies a modern

fleet of 101 aircraft to 87 cities in 59 countries. In 2006, the airline

introduced 11 new cities to its expanding global route network: Abidjan,

Addis Ababa, Bangalore, Barcelona (cargo-only), Beijing, Hamburg,

Kolkata, Lilongwe (cargo-only), Nagoya, Thiruvananthapuram and Tunis.
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