Article from BTNews 4 JULY 2016
Party time for Emirates
Emirates celebrated its 25th anniversary of serving Heathrow on Thursday after carrying more than 20m passengers on the route to and from Dubai since 1991.
The airline said nearly 1.5m people travelled with Emirates through the airport in the past year alone, equal to 18% of the London population.
Emirates launched the route as a thrice-weekly A310 service to Dubai. As passenger numbers have steadily increased, Emirates has added more aircraft and today offers six daily flights, all operated by the A380.
These flights are complemented by three daily A380 services between Gatwick and Dubai and Emirates says it will add a B777 to the Gatwick route from 1 October, meaning 10 daily flights will service the route between the capital and Dubai.
Emirates says its operation at Heathrow also contributes to the local economy. The airline employs 84 permanent staff at Heathrow, and more than 900,000 meals have been made locally in London to serve Emirates’ passengers to Dubai in the past year.
Some 162 rooms are required each night at London hotels to accommodate crew serving the route, equating to nearly 60,000 rooms per year.
OUR READERS' FINEST WORDS (All times and dates are GMT)
All comments are filtered to exclude any excesses but the Editor does not have to agree with what is being said. 100 words maximum