Dubai's national carrier Emirates has doubled its A380 capacity to New York’s John F. Kennedy and Paris’ Charles De Gaulle airports with  two daily A380 services from Dubai now operating into both cities.

Upgrading capacity into New York by 1,848 seats per week, flights EK203 and EK204 will now be operated by the Airbus A380-800.  EK203 departs from Dubai at 2.25am, arriving at JFK at 7.45am. On return, EK204 will leave JFK at 10.40am and arrive in Dubai at 8.10am the next day.

In Paris, an additional 2,198 seats per week will be added, said the Dubai airline in its statement. EK 075 will take off from Dubai at 3pm and land in Paris at 7.30pm. The return flight, EK 076 will depart Paris at 9.10pm and land in Dubai at 6.40am the next day.

“The decision to commit a second A380 to both New York and Paris is a clear indication of customer demand, for the state-of-the-art aircraft and these two popular destinations,” explained Thierry Antinori, Emirates’ executive vice president, Passenger Sales Worldwide.

“New York and Paris are both important routes for Emirates and its customers. Adding larger capacity aircraft is central to helping us meet growing passenger demand and will also boost economic support for American and French international commerce,” he stated.

With the world’s largest fleet of A380 aircraft at 31 and another 59 on order, Emirates continues to set the pace for A380 deployment. In the four years since the Emirates A380 has been in operation, over 11.5 million passengers have flown on the aircraft, covering 169 million km.

In 2012 alone, Emirates added 11 A380’s to its fleet, he pointed out.

"Emirates has redefined air travel and we look forward to offering the unique A380 experience to even more of our passengers on the Paris and New York routes with the exceptional and innovative features we offer on-board including the industry first Shower Spas, the First and Business Class On-Board lounge and an award-winning inflight system offering 1400 channels of on-demand entertainment," said Antinori.

"Combine this with our gourmet cuisine as well as a network spanning six continents, and you have a product which has become extremely popular with our global travellers," he added.-TradeArabia News Service