OREANDA-NEWS. On 09 July 2008 was announced, that Emirates, the Dubai-based international airline, which launched its first flight to Moscow Domodedovo International Airport on July 1st, 2003, is celebrating its 5th anniversary of successful operations to Russia.

New service standards offered by the company along with constantly growing destinations network allowed Emirates to take its own niche in the local air carrier market and to become popular among Russian passengers. As well as offering customers a direct flight to Dubai, the Emirates service provides those traveling from Russia with the opportunity to fly onwards from Dubai to 99 destinations across 5 continents.

The service, which began with a five times weekly operation, now offers a daily flight between the Russian capital and Dubai. In June 2008 Emirates announced the launch of the second daily flight to Moscow, which will start operating on March 1st, 2009. The second daily flight from Moscow will give even more convenient travel options to Russian travelers.

Emirates Moscow flight is operated by state of the art Boeing777 aircrafts, featuring award-winning ‘ice’ (information, communication, entertainment) system offering 600 channels of on-demand entertainment. Passengers travelling in First Class on this route also enjoy a new level of comfort onboard with personal suites equipped with lie-flat seats boasting an in-seat five zone massage*.

Khadim Al Shamsi, Emirates Manager for Russia and CIS, said: “Our place in the Russian market is quite unique, as very few airlines can offer such level of service onboard and on the ground. Russian passengers are turning their attention to better service while choosing the airline. We are constantly working on providing the best possible flying experience to our passengers and we are happy to admit that the demand is constantly growing”.

“Due to the growing number of passengers the flight load factor is going up and we reached XX per cent average load factor on the route. Emirates is going to continue the development of its business in Russia. Starting March 1, 2009, Emirates will launch the second daily flight service to Moscow. Given the increase of passenger amount on our Moscow route, we decided to recruit even more Russian professionals and hosted our second cabin crew recruitment campaign in Russia recently”.

“We owe a lot of Emirates success to our reliable and supportive partners in Russia and among them is Moscow Domodedovo International Airport. The team of professionals working at Domodedovo meets the highest standards and we are happy we have chosen them as our home airport in Moscow 5 years ago”, he added.

Today, Moscow Domodedovo International Airport is the largest airport in Eastern Europe. In 2007 Domodedovo serviced about 80 passenger carriers. The record-breaking 18.78 million people passenger traffic handled by the Domodedovo airport in 2007 was the largest in its entire history. In 2007, Moscow International Airport Domodedovo was the most dynamically growing airport among all European airports with the passenger traffic of 10-25 million people per annum. It is expected that the Domodedovo airport passenger traffic will exceed 22 million people in 2008 to reach 50 million people by 2020.

Commenting on successful partnership with Emirates, Domodedovo airport press secretary Eldar Tuzmukhametov said: “Emirates is renowned across the world as an airline providing outstanding service. At the same time, the airline expects its partners to operate in compliance with its highest standards. We are happy and proud that Emirates has chosen Domodedovo airport 5 years ago when it launched its flight to Russia. Emirates flights allowed Russian passengers to get acquainted with such beautiful country as UAE and a number of other Emirates destinations across the world. In its turn, Domodevovo airport offers excellent opportunities for transfer passengers traveling via Moscow. 5 years of successful partnership prove that the airline and the airport have wide perspectives for further development”.

To show appreciation to its Russian customers, Emirates has prepared some treats for the passengers traveling out of Domodedovo airport on July 1st – everyone will get a set of Godiva chocolates and an Emirates aircraft model.

Emirates currently operates services to 99 cities in 62 countries in Europe, North America, the Middle East, Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Asia-Pacific. New passenger routes for 2008 include Cape Town (launched on the 30th of March), Kozhikode (Calicut), Guangzhou (both to be launched on the 1st of July), Los Angeles (to be launched September 1st) and San Francisco (to be launched October 26th).

*these aircrafts serve the route on selected days of the week