Emirates Airline showcased its expanded services and new initiatives at the JATA World Congress & Travel Fair 2005 held in Tokyo recently. At JATA the airline, which serves Osaka with a daily service, announced the relocation of its existing office in the city to larger, spanking-new
premises and the opening of a brand-new offline office in Tokyo. Both
offices have been fitted with Emirates’ corporate interiors, systems and
facilities to enhance customer service and reinforce the airline’s branding
in the local market.The expanded new Osaka office has become a one-stop Emirates travel hub with
the call centre, which was earlier outsourced, brought in-house and
transformed to a sales, reservations and ticketing office, handling a broad
range of functions including retail, corporate and travel trade customers.

Emirates’ customers in Japan can look forward to more enhanced services as
staff numbers have now doubled to more than 30, with the new employees
thoroughly trained at the Emirates Aviation College in Dubai, on using the
airline’s sophisticated systems and in truly representing its high-quality
standards.

 

More than 3,500 visitors and travel trade executives called on Emirates’
stand and expressed intense interest in the airline and its products,
including group and MICE travel. The travel trade held meetings and engaged
in meaningful dialogue with Emirates’ senior executives from Dubai and
Osaka. Many visitors and the media recounted their delight at finding
Japanese crew onboard Emirates’ flights and hoped the airline would fly the
double-decker Airbus A380, of which it has 45 on order, to Japan.

 

Richard Vaughan, Emirates’ Senior Vice President Commercial East Asia &
Australasia, who attended JATA said: “This is the 13th year of Emirates’
participation at JATA and coupled with three years of direct services to
Osaka, we have established a strong presence in the country. As one of the
biggest events for the travel trade in the Far East, JATA is an ideal
regional platform to meet and exchange views, as well as showcase our
developments to discerning Japanese customers, partners and major industry
players.

 

“Our brand new offices in Japan and the new ticketing and reservations
centres are symbols of Emirates’ philosophy to continuously enhance and
provide service excellence across all our customer touch points.”

 

Emirates began services to Osaka on 1st October 2002 with four weekly
services to the ultra-modern Kansai International Airport. In March 2004,
Emirates increased its services to a daily, and currently operates an Airbus
A340-500 which offers 258 seats in a three-class configuration - 12 First,
42 Business and 204 Economy Class seats - and over 100 tonnes of weekly
cargo capacity.

 

Emirates’ services to Japan are on the upswing with the airline experiencing
strong demand from both passengers and cargo customers. Japan and UAE are
mature trading partners with Japanese exports to the UAE growing by 27 per
cent to US$4.6 billion and UAE exports rising by more than 28 per cent to
US$18.3 billion in 2004.

 

Japan has emerged as the fastest-growing market for the ultra-luxurious Al
Maha Desert Resort & Spa, which has seen the country’s guest numbers
increase by almost 30 per cent on an average every year since 2001, and is
expected to touch an approximate 40 per cent in 2005. Twenty-five per cent
of the resort’s Japanese guests are repeat customers and an equal per cent
of its Guest Relations staff speak Japanese.
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