Emirates has launched the new daily service to Brussels in Belgium which will see up to 16,000 Emirates customers travelling on the daily Boeing 777-200LR between Dubai and Brussels each month.

As the airline’s 145th worldwide route, Emirates will play a key role in further developing natural business links between Belgium and key markets in the Far East.

Emirates also estimates that it will deliver a boost to the country’s tourism sector, with Belgium a popular jumping off point for Europe bound travellers from Australasia.

“We’ve had lots of customers asking us to fly to Brussels over the years so this really is fantastic news for them.

“Belgium’s tourism is thriving and we believe that we can drive demand even higher by providing great competition with our multi-award winning product and service,” said Thierry Aucoc, Emirates senior vice president commercial operations Europe and Russian Federation.

“Emirates is the only airline offering First Class seats from Brussels to destinations in the Far and Middle East, providing an unrivalled premium experience for our passengers.

“As headquarters for a huge number of major global corporations we are already seeing strong bookings from markets like China, the UAE, Japan and India, one of Belgium’s largest trade partners.”

Emirates has been working with a number of Belgian based suppliers for many years, most significantly the luxury chocolatier Godiva.

In the last 12 months nearly four million boxes of twin Godiva chocolates, manufactured in Brussels, have been handed out globally to the airline’s First Class and Business Class passengers.

The UAE is a key trading partner of Belgium with more than €4 billion of goods exchanged between the two countries each year.

Both import and export of goods have grown steadily since 2009 with 1504 Belgian companies exporting goods to the UAE in the last year.

Tourism to Brussels from the UAE has grown significantly in the last five years with the number of visitors more than tripling since 2009.

The new direct link from Dubai to Brussels is expected to grow this sector even further, as well as increasing inbound traffic from key markets in the Far East and Australasia.

Belgium’s cargo exports account for 86 per cent of the country’s GDP and Emirates SkyCargo will help boost this by adding up to 17 tonnes of cargo per day.

Key export commodities include pharmaceuticals, automotive spare parts, chocolates, machinery and equipment and electronics.

Emirates’ new daily flight to Brussels departs Dubai as EK183 at 07:50 and arrives at Brussels International Airport, at 13:15 the same day.

The return flight, EK184 will depart at 14:45 and arrives at Dubai International Airport at 23:25 the same day.