Emirates’ summer service to the Saudi Arabian city of Al Medinah al Munawarah made its first flight over the weekend, touching down at Prince Mohammad bin Abdulaziz International Airport.

In step with strong demand an additional two services to Medinah Al Munawarah will be added effective 3rd August 2010, bringing the destination to a four times weekly service. Flights to the city will be active until 24th September 2010 in line with the routes temporary summer schedule.

Ahmed Khoory, Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial Operations Gulf, Middle East and Iran said: “Forward bookings over summer for Medinah Al Munawarah are extremely strong, particularly from key markets including the UAE, the Sub-continent, Far East and parts of Africa. We are extremely pleased with how this short term destination looks set to perform and all going well we may look to make this a more permanent route.

“The first flight to a new destination is always special and this first flight to Medinah Al Munawarah has been no different. We are confident that our passengers will continue to be impressed with our award winning standard of service as well as our convenient connections when travelling from outside Dubai.”

From August 3rd the two additional flights will depart Dubai each Tuesday and Saturday at 0705 hours and will arrive in Medinah Al Munawarah at 0850 hours. On the return journey the flight will depart Al Medinah al Munawarrah at 1015 hours, arriving in Dubai at 1355 hours. Emirates’ currently has two scheduled flights to the city departing on a Friday and Sunday.

The service is operated by an Airbus A330-200 aircraft, offering 27 seats in Business Class and 251 seats in Economy.

Emirates currently operates to three destinations in Saudi Arabia including; Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam. The airline first began operations to the Kingdom in 1989 with services to Jeddah.