Emirates has announced plans to offer a double daily service to Barcelona, less than three years after its initial launch to the city.

From May 2nd 2015 Emirates will add a further 3,724 seats per week to Barcelona increasing overall capacity by 51 per cent.

The extra service will be operated by a Boeing 777-200LR in a three class configuration, complementing the airline’s already successful daily A380 service.

Timings for the new flight have been scheduled to create and facilitate more effective connections between Barcelona and key cities in the Far East, Middle East, Australia and Africa, via Emirates’ Dubai hub. 

“Barcelona continues to be a huge success story for Emirates.

“In less than three years we have not only launched a new service but also added significant capacity in order to keep up with customer demand.

“This extra daily flight is a major boost to our operations and firmly underscores our commitment to the Spanish market,” said Hubert Frach, Emirates divisional senior vice president, commercial operations, West.

Barcelona frequently tops the must see destinations in Europe with over 7.3 million tourists visiting annually, making the city the 11th most visited destination in the world. 

The introduction of a Boeing 777-200LR will also add significant cargo capacity to the route with just over 230 tonnes per week to be added by Emirates
SkyCargo.

This additional capacity is expected to further support the movement of clothes, one of Catalonia’s main exports to the Gulf.

EK 188 will depart Dubai at 15:45 and arrive at Barcelona El Prat Airport at 21:00.

EK 189 will take off daily from Barcelona at 22:45 and land in Dubai at 07:25 the following day.

In addition to Barcelona, Emirates also operates a double daily service to Madrid.

Emirates first launched flights to Spain in 2010 and now offers a total of 21,042 seats per week to and from the country.