South Australians and other Aussies travelling through Adelaide Airport will soon have an easier route to the Middle East and Europe with the return of daily Emirates flights to the country’s fifth busiest hub on 28 October 2024.
Flight EK440 will touch down in Adelaide at 8.50pm and depart the SA capital at 10.35pm, with Dubai arrivals and departures timed to streamline connections to onward flights.
In a two-class configuration – Business and Economy – Emirates will utilise its B777-200LR on the route.
Adelaide Airport Managing Director Brenton Cox said the Gulf carrier’s return was an essential step to achieving ADL’s ultimate goals to boost city-to-city connections, travel demand and the SA economy.
Cox said the return of Emirates would be “particularly exciting for travellers looking for connections between Adelaide and European destinations”.
“We are grateful for Emirates’ return to Adelaide,” he said.
“Our customers will once again benefit from Emirates’ extensive global network via Dubai. Offering greater competition and customer choice, including through Emirates’ code-sharing and frequent flying joint venture arrangement with Qantas, connecting through the Middle East to Europe, Africa and even East Coast US.
The ADL boss also flagged the impact the service would have on local tourism as well as the need to push for more flights from more destinations.
“The service will attract international visitors to Adelaide and be critical for our tourism economy, for trade and our broader economy,” he stated.
“South Australia must continue to apply maximum throttle against fierce global competition to capture the aviation routes essential to the State’s development.
“Adelaide Airport is focussed on unlocking the State’s potential and is working to support our current carriers, recover our mainland China and Hong Kong customers and open up new direct access to our large unserved markets like Japan and the United States.”
Additionally, Cox praised Emirates’ decision to pick up where it left off with daily services, “the same as pre-COVID frequencies”. This, he said, “is a real sign of confidence in the Adelaide market”.
South Australia Premier Peter Malinauskas said the reinstatement of Emirates flights to the SA capital had been “a key priority” for the state government.
“Emirates once again flying daily direct into Adelaide will further drive South Australia’s economic growth – set to deliver an estimated $160 million in tourism expenditure and freight exports, and create more than 315 full-time tourism-related jobs for South Australians,” he remarked.
“The Emirates service has been very much missed by South Australians – recommencing daily flights will make Adelaide easier to reach from key long-haul markets and make doing business with our state easier.”
Meanwhile, SA Tourism Minister Zoe Bettison called the resumption of EK flights a “major recovery milestone for our state’s tourism industry, providing a crucial link into South Australia’s traditionally strong European markets, as well as the UK, Middle East, India and the east coast of the US”.
“The reinstatement of direct daily Emirates flights into Adelaide is expected to generate more than $62 million in tourism expenditure alone – a major boost to our state’s visitor economy,” she added.
“It is exciting that South Australia will once again feature in Emirates’ global marketing programs, getting more eyes around the world on SA and helping drive an increase in visitors to our state.”
In November, Adelaide Airport released details of a five-year plan to expand South Australia’s main gateway in its 2023 Integrated Report.
In early 2023, Currently, ADL said it has “genuinely realistic” plans to host non-stop flights between Adelaide and 37 major cities around the world.
In November last year, Vietjet became the first airline to fly directly between Adelaide and Vietnam.
