Emirates Downgrading Several Flights To Australia

While the Adelaide route is a downgrade in capacity its an upgrade for passenger comfort in business newer seats in better configuration and economy is more updated and in same configuration

I spent my first 27 years in Adelaide*, and I am sure the great and the good of Adelaide sometimes patronise Emirates First class, just as a matter of style, entitlement, and to make their social competitors envious. (It’s the only city I’ve lived in where holding dinner parties was a competitive blood sport. - I know. I came 2nd.)

Also, if my recent experience is any guide, Emirates seem happy to run their planes at aroun 75-80% capacity in Economy, and around 60% in premium classes.

So I suppose, is this actually fleet and route efficiently driven or Dubai airport restrictions driven .

*James, we probably share the same law school alma mater

Its also been confirmed by Emirates that Adelaide will get the new 777-200LR

https://www.ausbt.com.au/adelaide-to-get-emirates-new-boeing-777-business-class-seats?utm_source=grid

ADL being 77W is probably just a fleet utilization thing. More likely than not, they need those 2-class 77W to destinations around South Asia.

Kina same reason why they also have (or was it *had*) A380 flights to various middle eastern destinations - it's not like anyone can really enjoy the shower on those super short 1:20 air-time shuttles.

All that Adelaide people ever talk about... is Adelaide... lol

Why is downgauging the solution to the “we don’t have enough runways” problem? Shouldn’t you just use 380s?

Reading that Airline Route 'article' the reductions are actually quite far reaching not just to Australia. Many other routes have seen major reductions too and not just from next summer during the runaway renovations in Dubai.

One wonders where they'll rooster those planes or if they'll just be sitting around in Dubai.

@ Kyall - I grew up thinking Adelaide was the centre of the universe.

It wasn't until I lived somewhere else that I realised it wasn't ; P

@ Morgan - the loss of F class (which I'm assuming was very lightly loaded each day) but improvement in J class seating is, I guess a net positive.

I’m booked in the F suites MEL-SIN-DXB-JFK in January. Disappointing it will change to 777 through to DBX. Maybe I can try to switch to the nonstop.

@Morgan

The "new" cabin with 2-3-2 business straight out of 2005!

My dad was affected by the Perth cancellation, they auto rebooked him to the night before but a very quick call had him on the next day flight instead

Interesting that they've reduced capacity to Perth following the cancellation of Ethiad there - QF non-stop to London having an impact?!

I'm an Adelaide native currently located in Sydney. A good friend of mine who takes EK441 at least once a month for work related travel. He often remarks that J-loads are normally high to full out of 'rads on his mid-week flights. Being skywards platinum he often gets op-ups or invited to cash upgrade to F which, according to him is often runs at least 50%, and was completely full 2 nights ago. Now how many of those F pax are full rev paying is another matter, though I would argue there is at least some demand for F seats.

I'm also Adelaide based, and have flown between ADL-DXB on 3 occasions over the past 12 months in the F cabin. On all three flights, the majority of the cabin was full (min 6 seats). F is a sad (but hopefully temporary) loss for us. Fingers crossed it comes back.

As an aside, I was very surprised that the SYD-CHC A380 service didn't get cut. Not sure how high demand is for that service, but I journeyed on several almost empty F cabin on EK's AKL-MEL and AKL-SYD trans-Tasman services before they were dumped. I figure it must be only a matter of time before SYD-CHC goes the same way.

Is there much difference between the A380 First Class product and the 777-300 First Class product?

@ Chris - the seats are almost identical, but there is no showers or bar on the 777.