Emirates to fly Dubai-Auckland non-stop in world's longest journey

Emirates will start a daily non-stop service between Dubai and Auckland from March 2, cutting the journey by three hours and creating one of the world's longest flights.

The Auckland-Dubai leg will briefly be the world's longest  commercial at 17 hours 15 minutes, just shy of the planned Dubai-Panama City service, which will start on March 31 and take 17 hours 35 minutes.

The world's longest flight at present is Qantas' Dallas/Fort Worth-Sydney at 16 hours 55 minutes for the 13,800km distance.

The Dubai-Auckland leg will be just under 16 hours, making it within a dozen of the longest existing flights. Emirates already runs three of these – Dubai to Los Angeles, Houston and San Francisco – that take around 16 hours.

The aircraft on these flights are mainly Boeing 777s and the Dubai-Auckland service willuse  a B777-200LR (long range). 

Emirates will then have five services daily from New Zealand – three A380 double-decker services from Auckland via Australia, a daily Christchurch service with a Boeing 777-300ER also via Australia and the new service.

“Operating a non-stop service between Dubai and Auckland has been in our sights for some time, dependent on availability of suitable aircraft as we rapidly expand our global network of destinations, and frequency of flights and capacity on existing routes'" says Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman and chief executive, Emirates Airline and Group, in a statement.

“Having just one stop on the long haul to New Zealand will make the journey quicker and more comfortable. This will be a boon to many business people, tourists, expatriate New Zealanders and other travellers in Europe, parts of Africa and the Middle East,

“Tourists, in particular, will now have more options – travelling to Auckland with a stopover in Australia on one of our three daily A380s, flying non-stop direct into Auckland, or flying to the South Island on our daily Christchurch service. New Zealand currently hosts about three million tourists a year and we want to do our part to cater for that flow and grow that figure above current expectations.”

Expanding fleet numbers
Sheikh Ahmed says Emirates' aggressive fleet growth and renewal programme, which is rapidly expanding both its A380 and Boeing 777 numbers, means the right sort of aircraft for the ultra-longhaul non-stop flight from Dubai is now available.

With the introduction of the non-stop service, Emirates will be flying more than 2000 seats a day in each direction on New Zealand services.

Operating westbound as flight EK 449, the non-stop service will depart Auckland each night (local summer time) at 9:30pm, arriving in Dubai the following morning at 5:45 am (local time), connecting with Emirates’ flights to 38 Europe destinations, as well as other destinations in India, Africa and the Middle East.

Operating eastbound as flight EK 448, the service will depart Dubai at 10:05am and arrive in Auckland the following day at 11:00am (local summer time). Eastbound the new flight will offer short connections in Dubai from 24 of Emirates’ destinations in Europe. On arrival in Auckland, passengers will be able to connect to a number of other points on codeshare partner Jetstar’s domestic flights

The Boeing 777-200LR aircraft that will operate the new, non-stop route are purpose-built for ultra-longhaul flights, carrying up to 266 passengers. Like Emirates’ other New Zealand flights, the aircraft will offer three cabin classes: eight first class suites, 42 lie-flat business class seats and 216 in economy seating.

Emirates says exporters will also benefit from the new service because highly perishable goods will get to Middle East and European markets sooner.

Travellers booked on existing services to Dubai and beyond will be able to switch to the new service without additional fees (subject to seat availability).

Postscript: Norris Carter, Auckland Airport’s general manager – aeronautical commercial, says the new service will provide an extra 194,180 seats a year on the Dubai route and deliver an additional $125 million every year to the New Zealand economy.