Emirates has announced that it will introduce a third daily flight between Dubai and Kenya’s capital Nairobi from June.

The additional flight will increase the number of scheduled Emirates flights between the two cities to 21 a week and give customers greater flexibility and choice when planning their travel.

It also underscores Emirates’ commitment to Kenya and confidence in the route, which has grown to become one of the airline’s busiest routes in Africa since it first launched services to the country in October 1995.

As with its other two daily flights between Dubai and Nairobi, Emirates will also operate its popular Boeing 777-300ER in a three class configuration.

Flight EK717 will become the first of the three daily departures from Dubai and leave at 01:40 and arrive in Nairobi at 05:40, enabling customers arriving on Emirates’ flights from India, the UK and many European countries such as France, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Netherlands and Italy to connect to the Nairobi flight within three hours.

The return flight EK718 is also conveniently timed and will depart Nairobi at 07:10 and land in Dubai at 13:15, ahead of Emirates’ afternoon European flights and its fourth daily flight to New York, a popular destination for Kenyan travellers.

Emirates hub, Dubai International Airport, offers a modern, convenient and comfortable transit to connect to flights across the airline’s worldwide network, with many key destinations having multiple departures and being served by the airline’s iconic double decker A380 aircraft.

The flight will also provide 16 tons of additional cargo capacity on the route for Kenya’s main export products such as flowers, fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as key imports such as mobile phones, pharmaceuticals and readymade garments, amongst others.

The airline’s other two daily flights, EK 719, departs Dubai at 10:25 and arrive in Nairobi at 14:25.

The return flight EK720, leaves at 16:35 and lands in Dubai at 22:40.

The third flight, EK721 departs Dubai at 16:00 and arrives in Nairobi at 20:10, while the returning flight EK 722 leaves Nairobi at 22:45 and arrives back in Dubai at 04:50 the next morning.

Emirates has a strong presence in East Africa and in addition to Nairobi, also flies once daily to Entebbe in Uganda, Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia.