After announcing the halting of flights to Australia’s largest cities, Emirates will start selling First Class and Business class beginning April 2021.
On January 15, 2021, the Dubai-based carrier announced on its website the suspension of flights to Australia “until further notice” due to “operational reasons”. But it seems that Emirates is already planning to resume the flights as the tickets are going on sale from early April 2021. However, at first, only First Class and Business Class will be available for booking.
From April 2021, Emirates is selling only its eight first class suites on its Boeing 777-300 aircraft for selected flights to Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne, with prices starting at around $5,992 (AED22,000) per person. Mid-April, 2021, the Business Class seats become available at prices ranging from $4,318 to $5,320. The economy seats are not available for booking until May 2021.
On January 8, 2021, due to the spread of the coronavirus mutations, Australia decided to implement a cap for arriving passengers, setting a limit of around 7,500 arrivals per week. That restricts airlines to carrying as few as 30-50 passengers on aircraft with a capacity of 250-350 seats. All passengers must also test negative before arriving in Australia and will be subject to 14-day mandatory quarantine.
Until April 2021, Emirates will continue operating only cargo flights to and from Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Emirates plans to re-launch operations to the United States in February 2021 as the air travel demand increases. Non-stop services to Seattle will kick-off on February 1, 2021, while routes to Dallas and San Francisco will open up on March 2, 2021. This will expand the carrier’s network to ten North American destinations. Emirates currently serves 114 destinations on six continents.