Emirates has unveiled plans to launch a second daily service from Dubai International Airport to Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), starting in July.

Beginning July 1, the second Los Angeles flight will be operated with an Emirates’ Airbus A380-800ULR aircraft in a three-class configuration with 14 private suites in First class, 76 seats in Business class and 401 seats in Economy class.

The new service, flight EK217, will depart Dubai at 3:00 pm and arrive in Los Angeles at 8:00 pm. The return flight, EK218, will depart Los Angeles at 10:30 pm. and arrive in Dubai approximately 16 hours later at 1:30 a.m.  

The new service will supplement the current EK215 Airbus A380-800 flight, serving the growing customer demand for travel between Dubai and western US, as well as for those passengers connecting to Emirates’ vast global network of onwards destinations.

“Our existing service provides $677 million in annual economic benefit to LA and the surrounding area, contributes over $270 million in annual spending by visitors, and helps to support nearly 6,000 US jobs,” said Hubert Frach, Emirates divisional senior vice president, Commercial Operations, West. “So our additional service to LAX not only doubles our capacity to meet demand for our award winning service, but also increases our positive economic impact to the Los Angeles area.”

Los Angeles, California is the second largest city in the US. Commonly referred to as the City of Angels, Los Angeles is a global city with a diverse economy in entertainment, culture, media, fashion, science, sports, technology, education, medicine and research.  While most often associated with its world renowned entertainment industry, LA is one of the largest manufacturing centres in the western U.S. and supports a thriving aerospace sector as well. In fact, LA County has 56,239 people employed in the aerospace and defense industry, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation.

A major export from Los Angeles is fruits and vegetables and these account for the largest portion of Emirates’ cargo exports out of Los Angeles, transported both in the belly hold of the airline's wide body A380 aircraft as well as through two Emirates Boeing 777-200F freighters each week. The vast majority of these exports are transported to Dubai and Kuwait. Emirates also facilitates transport of garments, automobiles, machinery, and agricultural cargo to the Middle East, as well as medical equipment to Mumbai. – TradeArabia News Service