Passengers travelling to Melbourne, Australia will now have another direct flight option with Emirates announcing that flights EK408 and EK409 will begin operating as non-stop services from Dubai from October 30th, 2016.

Operated by an Emirates B777-300ER aircraft, EK408 will depart Dubai at 03:00 and arrive in Melbourne at 23:20.

The return flight, EK409, will leave Melbourne at 06:00 and land in Dubai at 13:05.

The current service from Dubai to Melbourne operates via Kuala Lumpur in both directions.

These flight changes will save passengers approximately two and half hours in travel time in each direction when travelling between Dubai and Melbourne on these services.

The change to these services will provide passengers with improved one-stop connectivity when travelling with Emirates from its UK gateways (London Heathrow, London Gatwick, Birmingham, Newcastle, Glasgow and Manchester) to Melbourne via Dubai.

Emirates offers a total of four daily flights from Dubai to Melbourne with codeshare partner Qantas, including three services operated by an A380 aircraft and one flight on an Emirates B777-300ER.

With this change, from October 30th, 2016, these four daily services will include two daily non-stop flights to Melbourne from Dubai on Emirates and one flight on Qantas aircraft, as well as one daily Emirates flight to Melbourne from Dubai that operates via Singapore.

Together, Emirates and Qantas operate 91 flights per week to Australia from Dubai.

Of these 91 flights, 77 of these are Emirates services, which operate to and from Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney, including six daily A380 flights.

From October 30th, 2016, passengers travelling to Malaysia will continue to be able travel to the country on Emirates’ three daily flights to Kuala Lumpur from Dubai, two of which operate on Emirates 777-300ER and one an A380.

Emirates is currently working with travel agents and tour operators regarding alternative travel plans for passengers booked for travel to Kuala Lumpur on the EK408 or EK409 services after 30 October 2016.