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Insider boards world's largest passenger plane
North West relations with the Middle East took another step forward as Emirates launched its Airbus A380 service between Manchester and Dubai – a world first for any regional airport. In a bold statement to the regional aviation market, the 517-capacity, twin-deck plane landed on the tarmac at 12.25pm yesterday in front of more than 10,000 spectators.
Rupert Cornford, North West Business Insider deputy editor, who boarded the plane, said: "The inside of this plane is huge. There is a real sense of space in economy class, which takes up the entire lower deck of the plane, but go upstairs and the stats continue to impress.
"Emirates has nearly doubled capacity in business class and the 14 first class seats aren’t even called seats - they’re suites."
The "super jumbo" will fly one of the two daily flights to Dubai from Manchester and joins the established routes from Dubai to London Heathrow, Sydney, Auckland, Seoul, Bangkok, Paris, and Toronto.
Richard Vaughan, divisional senior vice president of commercial operations worldwide, told Insider there was a clear message for business travellers looking to growth markets. He said: “Why would you want to go to Heathrow when you’ve got a great airport here and the best aircraft in the air at the moment? We’re hoping that the region will come flocking as it’s worked everywhere else."
“What this does is that it gives us the business class capacity we’ve needed – from 42 seats to 76. The additional plus is that hopefully business travellers will also appreciate that we’ve got the best first class product in the air.” Demand is understood to have outstripped supply on this route for the past three to four years as the Middle East has become a major tourist and business destination.
The Emirates brand has grown exponentially under the ownership of the Dubai government since it started in 1985, and yesterday’s flight marked 20 years of operations to Manchester. The airline is currently operating 12 A380s on its global network and has another 90 on order.
Vaughan said: “You have to have confidence in your product. We’ve got a great team and we don’t fear anything.”
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