19th May, 2010 – Emirates’ A380 superjumbo will make a much-anticipated return to New York on 31st October, the airline has announced. The aircraft’s reinstatement on one of Emirates’ double daily Dubai – JFK routes comes as the carrier reported a significant increase in revenue for the Americas in 2009-10, representing a year-on-year rise of 8.1 percent.

Growth in the Americas helped steer the airline to a net profit of AED 3.5 billion (US$ 964 million), while 27.5 million passengers flew with Emirates over the last financial year, over 20 percent more than in 2008- 09.

Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline said: “We promised to return the A380 to New York as soon as demand recovered and we have been true to our word.”

He continued: “Against some of the toughest operating conditions ever faced, the results for the Americas have been hugely encouraging. This achievement reflects our success in maintaining our business as usual approach and remaining faithful to our strategy of product and service excellence.”

“As we look to 2010-11 and beyond, Emirates will continue to invest in its products and services to build on the resurgent demand for air travel within the Americas. Our plans for the future also include
adding new US cities to our four existing gateways: New York, Houston, Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

Emirates’ expansion plans for the region will be boosted by a significant increase in capacity. The airline is scheduled to receive 11 new wide-body aircraft in 2010, including Airbus A380s and Boeing
777s.

Emirates currently operates eight A380 aircraft, serving London Heathrow, Toronto, Paris, Jeddah, Bangkok, Seoul, Sydney and Auckland. In March 2010, the airline also announced the start of A380 services to Beijing from 1st August and Manchester from 1st September.

The superjumbos offer an Onboard Lounge for First Class and Business Class passengers, with a wide range of drinks and canapés, as well as the space to socialise or simply relax.

Passengers in all classes can lose themselves in the quietness of the aircraft and the much-enjoyed ice entertainment system. There are more than 1,000 channels of on-demand entertainment including 200 movies from around the world, 100 TV channels, more than 500 audio channels, 100 video games and news, sports and business headlines.

From 31st October, Flight EK201 will be operated by an A380 aircraft departing Dubai (DXB) at 08:30, arriving New York (JFK) at 14:15 the same day. EK202 departs JFK at 23:00, arriving Dubai at 19:45 the
following day. The daily A380 service will complement Emirates second daily flight aboard the Boeing 777-300ER.

Readers of In-Flight Entertainment are probably tired of hearing what we have to say about the industry so we decided to turn the tables on you and asked what you thought about the latest WAEA TC Meeting in California last week and here is what you said (names withheld to protect the innocent).

Responder One: “The WAEA SFW on Connectivity was well attended, although there seemed to be fewer airlines attending than for the first SFW in Everett, WA in June 2009. Airlines are clearly embracing airborne connectivity for passengers and airplanes. IFE & C suppliers are mapping a future enabling those of us with mobile devices to stay connected in the air as we are on the ground. Without a doubt, most passengers under thirty years old have grown up with computers and cell phones, and have come to expect to be socially connected through texting, Facebook and Twitter. These are the business and leisure passengers of today and tomorrow; these passengers expect to be connected 24/7. Soon connected teenagers will be paying passengers and working adults. The WAEA SFW on Connectivity did an excellent job of highlighting this trend, this opportunity, this inevitable future.

Next, our second responder told us: “At the TC there was consensus for moving forward with a list of additions to the MPEG-4 Settings that include: a) Specifying Progressive video input as a Best Practice, b) Designating MPEG-4 Part 10 Main Profile, Level 3.1 as a Best Practices default, c) Limiting the number of reference frames to 2. We were not able to reach consensus on data rate however. There were expressions of preference for codifying either 1.5Mbps or 2.0 Mbps, and some favored a range between the two. But in the absence of consensus we will deliberate in committee in an effort to reconcile. We will continue investigating an HD and 3D spec.”

Thirdly, our next responder (Three) told us, and we quote; “Some presentations in the workshop were informative; others had way too many details about antenna and frequency allocation technology. Airline attendance was low even though most of the presentations were targeted towards airlines. No question connectivity is a hot topic and everyone is on board from airlines to vendors to OEM’s. Reminds me a lot of the air-to-ground telephony industry back in the 90’s where it was deemed as a must have on every seat on every flight. None of those companies are in business today and the usage was far less than advertised. While I agree that future generations expect to be connected 24/7, I question the ultimate success of any company selling any product in flight that requires a passenger to pull out their wallet. If the service becomes free as it is in many airports and lounges today, that is an entirely different story.”

Our fourth responder asks the rhetorical question: “Is there an HD standard in IFE’s future? The WAEA’s Technology Committee meeting in Los Angeles last week was very well attended, with over 150 IFE professionals sharing their opinions on MPEG4, High Definition video content, and the future of 3-D video in IFE. While the discussion about standardizing MPEG4 settings and the future formats of 3-D video displays were “interesting,” the discussion about HD video for IFE was downright scintillating, with diverse opinions from all segments of the IFE business. Here’s just a sampling of comments, opinions, and factoids heard at the meeting:

Hardware provider: 720p makes most sense for HD IFE – 1080p does not make sense, since it means having to store more data that does not noticeably improve picture quality on mostly small screens. 32” displays are the threshold for perceiving increased quality offered by 1080p.

Hardware provider: Resolutions of 1280 x 720 and 1920 x 1080 are used by US broadcasters, while 1920 x1080 is that of BluRay. Further, BluRay uses variable bit rates of 25-30 Mbps. If we continue to use constant bit rate (CBR) for IFE encodes, we will have to encode everything at the highest bit rate or lose quality on the fast changing scenes.

A hardware provider’s point: 1080p will be the resolution of choice for display systems in the next 5 years.

A content provider’s counter-point: 720p is the standard for the content already – broadcasters may transmit it in 1080p but the content is 720p.
Another content provider’s counter-point: Resolution is not going to stop at 1080 lines – we are already seeing 2000 and 4000 lines, and 8000 lines has been demonstrated in Japan.

As you can see from all these divergent viewpoints, we are a ways away from agreement on what the standard HD content format should be for IFE – or even if there should be a standard at all (a view espoused privately by a few attendees). What do you think: should the TC have its working group spend the time over the next few months to hammer out a standard for some aspects of HD video for IFE (could save airlines on costs for content?), or should they let the marketplace duke it out for a while and see what settles out?”

And lastly, responder five told us: “The WAEA TC Single Focus Workshop had its usual sales pitches given under the guise of imparting technical information and approaches. However, two presentations in particular stood out for their clarity and the amount of usable information presented. OnAir’s Henri Broussalian made a very good case for mobile voice onboard aircraft based on experience on over 100,000 commercial flights. Broussalian cited that there have been “zero” complaints about passenger cell phone use and that the U.S. restriction called the “Hang Up Bill” is ill-advised based on this experience. He indicated that the U.S. should immediately reconsider this policy of denying passengers this kind of connectivity. Despite raising the bar on the number of acronyms used, DDEi’s Peter Lemme gave an excellent overview of the structure of current aircraft “operational” communications environment and a cogent approach to deploying these applications over the newer broadband solutions being installed. Mr. Lemme noted there are certain regulatory issues to be resolved both not only in the aeronautical industry but also in the world telecommunications arena so the progress will be slow but steadily moving to broadband. This author’s view, based on my work with operational communications, is that airlines will cautiously use the broadband pipe that is becoming available for passengers through the deployment of category 2 and 3 EFBs to support operational efficiencies. The growth in the use of broadband for operational communications will lag slightly, by 6-12 months, the deployment of the broadband systems on a fleet-by-fleet basis. As operational experience with broadband grows, the airline industry will naturally seek to fill this much larger “pipe” with more aircraft management applications in an effort to reduce costs and operate more effectively.”
That’s All Folks!

Editor’s Note: Breaking news has Emirates and Ryanair dropping OnAir service. It looks like one of our responders was pretty much on the money!

Dubai, UAE, 30th July 2009 – Emirates has become the world’s largest airline operator of Boeing 777 aircraft with the arrival of its 78th Boeing 777 today.

Emirates has another 28 Boeing 777s pending delivery, worth over US$ 7 billion at list prices, and it is also the only airline to operate every model in the Boeing 777 family: -200s, -200ERs, -200LRs, -300s, -300ERs and freighters. The newest addition to the Emirates fleet is a Boeing 777-300ER configured for long distance journeys.

Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline said: “The 777s form the backbone of our fleet, and we have configured these aircraft to give us maximum flexibility in terms of route deployment. Emirates’ 777s today fly to six continents from our Dubai hub, operating routes within a two-hour distance to long-range journeys of 16 hours non-stop.

“The 777 is an excellent aircraft in terms of operating economics, and importantly, the new technologies incorporated within enable us to fit it out with the latest onboard systems and passenger amenities. Emirates is committed to maintaining a young and modern fleet, which enhances our passengers’ comfort and safety and also makes our aircraft some of the most environmentally-friendly in the skies.”

“The 777 is the world’s most successful twin-engine, long-haul airplane and Emirates has contributed significantly to the programme’s success, both in becoming the now largest 777 airline customer and through its continued feedback on quality step improvements we’ve made to the airplane,” said Marty Bentrott, Boeing Commercial Airplanes’ Vice President of Sales for the Middle East, Central and South Asia. “With suppliers around the world contributing to and benefitting from 777 production, Emirates’ investment toward building the world’s largest Boeing 777 fleet has played a role in maintaining and strengthening the global aviation manufacturing industry.”

Emirates recently completed an upgrading programme for its existing 777 fleet, and now all of its 777 aircraft boast its award-winning ice (information, communication, entertainment) system, which offers passengers in all cabin classes an unrivalled choice of up to 1,200 channels of the latest movies, TV programming, music and games on demand.

The airline’s long-range 777s have also been equipped with its very latest onboard products including private suites in First Class, lie-flat massage seats in Business Class, and ergonomically designed seats in Economy Class.

Emirates received its first 777, a Boeing 777-200, in 1996. Its current 777 fleet comprises: three -200s, six -200ERs, 10 -200LRs, 12 -300s, 45 -300ERs, and two 777 freighters. In total, Emirates operates an all-wide body fleet of 137 Boeing and Airbus aircraft to 99 cities in 60 countries on six continents. -ends

About Emirates
With a fleet of 134 aircraft, including five A380 superjumbos, Emirates flies non-stop to six continents from its international hub in Dubai.

1st June, 2009 – Emirates scored a double whammy today as two of its A380 super jumbos jetted off from Dubai to the opposite ends of the globe, marking the aviation world’s first A380 commercial services to Bangkok and Toronto.

The launch of Emirates’ A380 operations – daily from Dubai to Bangkok, and thrice weekly from Dubai to Toronto – signals a new era of luxury air travel to Thailand and Canada, and represents yet another milestone in the airline’s A380 programme.

Tim Clark, President, Emirates Airline said: “Emirates is delighted to celebrate its inaugural A380 services to Thailand and Canada today. The aircraft with its large capacity and excellent operating economies is a pillar of growth, both for the airline and the destination. In Thailand, the introduction of the super jumbo will support the local government’s multi-million dollar promotional drive to boost tourism arrivals from the high-yield Middle East region. At the same time the higher-capacity A380 will help address the strong demand for passenger and cargo services on the Dubai-Toronto route which is currently restricted by the bi-lateral agreement to three flights per week.”

Mr. Clark added: “With air travel due to triple in the next 18 years and constraints on traffic rights and airport slots to continue, larger capacity aircraft such as the A380 are key to Emirates’ plans to meet increasing passenger demand. We have ordered 58 A380s and each one of these has been carefully planned for our present and future requirements. Our next A380 destination will be Seoul on 1st December, and will represent Emirates’ first A380 service to North East Asia.”

The A380 has 35 per cent more seats than its closest rival. It is the most environmentally-advanced commercial aircraft in the sky today, offering better fuel economy than most hybrid passenger cars. The A380 burns up to 20 per cent less fuel per seat than today’s next largest aircraft, and is quieter, generating less than half the noise of other aircraft on takeoff.

The Emirates’ A380 – with 14 First Class Private Suites, 76 Business Class and 399 Economy seats – represents the latest innovation and technology from a company recognized internationally for its in-flight amenities and services. Unique to the Emirates aircraft are its Shower Spas – two fully-equipped bathrooms in the First class cabins with shower facilities. Emirates A380’s ground-breaking in-flight product also features an Onboard Lounge for First and Business class passengers which includes a bar with a wide range of beverages and canapés as well as an exclusive space to socialise or simply relax.

A380 passengers enjoy an elaborate menu created by top international chefs and complemented by the finest beverages. Emirates’ award-winning ‘ice’ (information, communication, entertainment) in-flight entertainment system offers more than 1000 channels of on-demand entertainment, the largest programming currently available in the skies. Each cabin is equipped with an advanced mood lighting system, complete with a starlit sky, which adjusts throughout the flight to reflect the time at the destination and to help combat the effects of jet lag.

First class passengers relax in flat-bed, massage-equipped suites while Business class passengers enjoy a new generation of intelligent seating designed to ensure all 76 flat-bed seats have aisle access. Passengers in Economy will appreciate the straight walls throughout the cabin that lend to a more spacious ambience, enhanced further by generous seats and wider aisles.

About Emirates
Emirates operates 98 non-stop flights per week from the UK to Dubai – five services a day from Heathrow, three daily from Gatwick, two per day from Manchester and Birmingham, and daily services from Newcastle and Glasgow.

Emirates currently flies to more than 100 destinations in Europe, North America, South America, the Middle East, Africa, Indian subcontinent and Asia-Pacific.

For more information, visit www.emirates.com/uk

LAKE FOREST, California – 07 April 2009 – Panasonic Avionics Corporation (Panasonic), a leading global provider of in-flight entertainment (IFE) and communications systems, congratulates five of its customers for their “best in-flight entertainment.” For ten years, the SKYTRAX World Airline Awards have acknowledged those airlines that have used technology innovation to benefit the flying public. The 2009 award honorees are:

1. Emirates
2. Singapore Airlines
3. Virgin Atlantic Airways
4. Cathay Pacific
5. Qatar Airways

This year’s winners were commemorated at an event at the Aircraft Interiors Exposition in Hamburg, Germany.

“Each year, the World Airline Awards seeks to recognize airlines for their ongoing efforts to utilize technology in order to benefit the flying public,” said Paul Margis, CEO of Panasonic Avionics Corporation. “We are delighted that these five outstanding airlines have been recognized for their ongoing efforts in innovations that enhances the passenger experience. We applaud them for their creative use of IFE technology to provide the best quality product and service for their passengers.”

The 2009 World Airline Awards are based on the annual World Airline Survey by SKYTRAX, which was conducted between August 2008 and March 2009. The prestigious and highly coveted awards are recognized around the world for its global, independent passenger survey of airline standards.

About Panasonic Avionics Corporation
Panasonic Avionics Corporation is the world’s leading supplier of in-flight entertainment and communication systems. The company’s best-in-class solutions, supported by professional maintenance services, fully integrate with the cabin enabling airlines to deliver the ultimate travel experiences with a rich variety of entertainment choices, resulting in improved quality communication systems and solutions, reduced time-to-market and lower overall costs.

Established in 1979, Panasonic Avionics Corporation is a subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation of North America, the principal North American subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation (NYSE: PC). Headquartered in Lake Forest, California, with over 3,100 employees and operations in 80 locations worldwide, it serves over 200 customers worldwide and provides IFEC systems on over 3,700 aircraft. For additional information, please visit www.panasonic.aero.

Friday, March 20, 2009 – Cutting-edge communications for Emirates passengers reached a new milestone today with the first birthday of its world-beating in-flight mobile service with AeroMobile.

History was made a year ago today when the first authorised call on a commercial flight was made on flight EK751, flying from Dubai to Casablanca on March 20th 2008.

Since then, 160,170 passengers have switched on their mobile phone on an Emirates flight to take advantage of the ability to make and receive calls and text messages – more than 50,000 in the last three months alone as the service becomes more widely available and increasingly popular.

The AeroMobile system, which allows passengers to safely make and receive calls during flights, has now been fitted on a total of 32 Emirates aircraft, making it available on one-in-four of Emirates’ services. Emirates Engineering are installing the AeroMobile system on the rest of the fleet, with one aircraft being equipped every ten days or so.

Patrick Brannelly, Emirates’ Vice President, Passenger Communications and Visual Services, said: “Using this innovative service has now become second nature to our passengers who love the convenience of being able to stay in touch when they choose to.

“It has proved as popular with passengers on all flights to all destinations, not just businessmen and women but also leisure travellers. It’s ideal for just wanting to call home or make contact with family on birthdays or anniversaries.

“Typically about a third of our passengers are switching on their phones onboard AeroMobile-equipped aircraft, so it’s clearly a popular service. We do see many though, that switch on their phone but don’t necessarily use it, showing that they like the idea of being contactable. It’s clear that passengers prefer using their own phone which they are familiar with, rather than the seatback phone.

“The early concerns about potential impact on other passengers have proved, as expected, to be unfounded. We very rarely see multiple calls at the same time, and most calls are shorter than a couple of minutes. Texting using sms has been very popular. The feedback from our customers has been full of enthusiasm.”

The AeroMobile service is being rolled out across the Emirates fleet and is currently operating on five aircraft types, the Boeing 777-200s and 777-300s, plus the Airbus A340-300, A340-500 and A330-200. It is due to be installed on the Boeing 777-300ER from May.

AeroMobile CEO Bjorn-Taale Sandberg said: “With our service firmly established on an increasing number of Emirates’ aircraft, the usage level amongst passengers has increased at a faster pace.

“We’re particularly proud of the quality of the voice service and overall reliability. The comment we most often hear is that people receiving calls from our customers in-flight can’t believe they are calling from 35,000 feet.

“We are looking forward to more growth and rising user numbers throughout 2009 to cement a great first year.”

About AeroMobile

AeroMobile Limited is a UK-based company owned by Telenor ASA and Arinc. It has been pursuing the objective of allowing the safe use of passengers own mobile phones and PDAs since 2003 in response to market demands.

In September 2008, AeroMobile won the “Best Achievement in Technology 2008” award from the World Airline Entertainment Association (WAEA).

Prior to the launch of the Emirates service, mobile phone use in aircraft has only been allowed in limited, short-term trials which did not support voice calls.

AeroMobile is the first in-flight mobile technology to be commercially available and first flew in June 2005 on Boeing’s 777-200LR ‘Worldliner’ demonstrator aircraft.  In April 2007, AeroMobile implemented a trial service on domestic flights within Australia. This evaluation project, supporting GSM text messaging and GPRS data services, continued until January 2008 having operated on over 1,000 flights.

AeroMobile is teamed with Panasonic Avionics Corporation, the Panasonic’s market-leading in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems provider, to offer the AeroMobile aircraft technology under the eXPhone brand as an integral part of Panasonic’s IFE systems. The AeroMobile system uses the existing Inmarsat satellite communications systems installed on all Emirates aircraft. These systems will be upgraded at the earliest opportunity to Inmarsat’s latest SwiftBroadband service providing further features and capabilities such as GPRS mobile data services.

More information may be found at www.aeromobile.net

18th February 2009 – Emirates Airline today unveiled plans to grow the number of flights across its network by 14 per cent in 2009.

This year, the Dubai based carrier will add 18 new passenger aircraft to its fleet, increasing seating capacity by 14 per cent and enabling it to start new routes as well as increase frequencies on many existing routes. It will also expand cargo capacity by 17 per cent.

The additional frequencies will afford passengers a greater choice of flights, more frequent connections with their target markets and shorter, more convenient connection times.

Emirates currently has a fleet of 129 wide-bodied aircraft. By the end of the 2008-09 financial year (ending 31st March 2009), that figure will stand at 132, including four superjumbo Airbus A380s. The carrier will welcome a further seven A380s in fiscal year 2009-10 (ending 31st March 2010), as well as 10 Boeing 777-300ER, one 777-200LR and one Boeing 777 freighter.

HH Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group, said: “The next year is not going to be an easy ride for the airline industry. Emirates has prepared the best we can for the challenges we foresee, but we also see it as a time of opportunity. 2009, with our significant capacity increase, will be a year of consolidation for us, with fewer new routes launched than in previous years.

“Instead, we will concentrate on strengthening our presence on routes where there is a greater demand from our customers. All of our new capacity will be deployed in markets where we see growth potential, particularly Africa and the Middle East.”

Indeed, Emirates’ fastest growing markets are Africa and the Middle East, recording 17 and six per cent growth respectively in the last 12 months. To this end, Emirates recently added a second daily flight to Lagos.

It will also introduce services from Dubai to Durban, South Africa on 1st October 2009. The route will be served by a two-class, 278-seat Airbus A330-200 which can carry up to 14 tonnes of cargo into the port city.

Last month, Emirates announced a vast Middle East expansion plan taking the number of seats in the region to 50,000 on 180 flights a week. Additional services to Amman, Riyadh, Jeddah, Kuwait and Damascus were started recently.

Emirates has added 32 weekly flights to its existing Indian services since November. The enhanced capacity means customers now have a choice of 163 weekly flights into 10 gateways in the country.

As new aircraft come online, both Los Angeles and San Francisco – Emirates’ newest routes, launched in October and December – will go from thrice weekly to daily from May. The extra services will add more than 2,000 seats a week between the US west coast and Dubai, which is more than a 100 per cent increase on the current 1,600 seats.

There is increased capacity to Australia with additional daily flights to Brisbane and Melbourne, taking the total number of flights a week to 63 effective from 1st February. Later this year, a third daily service to Sydney will be added. On 1st February, Emirates became the first carrier to operate commercial A380 flights into New Zealand with the launch of its Dubai-Sydney-Auckland service. Operated by a 489-seat Airbus A380 three times a week, it will go daily from 1st May.

Plans are also afoot to deploy superjumbos on Dubai–Seoul and Dubai–Singapore services in November and December respectively.

The first A380 flight between Dubai and Seoul’s Incheon International Airport will depart in November, while the Singapore service will start in December and initially run four times weekly.

In Europe, Emirates has already embarked on an expansion programme. In recent months it has commenced double daily flights into Milan, increased Istanbul services to 11 flights a week, increased services on the Larnaca-Malta route to seven times weekly and Nice flights to five times weekly.

Second daily services into Moscow and Athens are also planned for March.

In total, the additional capacity will see more than 8,635 seats and around 600 tonnes of cargo capacity added to the Emirates fleet.

“Emirates has recorded an annual growth rate of 20 per cent over the last five years,” reported HH Sheikh Ahmed. “In the last two years alone, we have launched 11 new passenger and three cargo-only routes. In 2007, with the launch of its Dubai–Sao Paulo service, we became the first – and only – carrier to fly to six continents non-stop from a single hub.”

Established in October 1985 with flights to Karachi and Mumbai, Emirates Airline today directly serves 101 cities in 61 countries. In October 2008, the Emirates dedicated Terminal 3 at Dubai International Airport opened. With a total built-up area of 515,000 sq metres and the capability of handling 43 million passengers annually, the 10-storey concourse was specifically designed with Emirates’ future growth plans in mind.

In 2008, 22 million Emirates passengers passed through Dubai International Airport – an 11 per cent increase on 2007.

For more information, visit http://www.emirates.com/uk