Emirates Airlines connects to Nigerian capital

Emirates flight EK785 landed at Abuja's Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport on 1 August, marking the start of the airline's daily service to its second destination in Nigeria. Services to Lagos were launched just over ten years ago.

"This new daily flight provides a convenient point to point service for our customers between Abuja and Dubai, and it will meet and further stimulate a vibrant market demand between the two cities," said Adil Al Ghaith, Emirates vice president of Commercial Operations for Northern and Western Africa.

"It will also serve our customers in Nigeria and around the network with additional connectivity and daily frequency. Our leisure and business passengers from Nigeria can now better connect to the Middle East, Europe, the United States and Asia via our hub in Dubai. Customers in Abuja can experience our A380 flagship aircraft to 29 destinations around the world, including popular ones like Beijing, Hong Kong, Mumbai, New York, Jeddah and London."

Key market

"With a fast growing economy, Nigeria is a key market for Emirates. We started operations to Nigeria on 2 January 2004, with four flights a week from Dubai to Lagos. Since then, our operations have steadily grown with increases in both frequency and capacity between Lagos and Dubai. Today, we fly twice daily to Lagos and now we have added Abuja, giving us a total of more than 12,200 seats a week, which will further stimulate business and leisure travel, as well as trade," he added.

Emirates' Dubai-Abuja route is served by an Airbus A340-300 which offers 267 seats in a three-class configuration - 12 first class, 42 business class and 213 economy class seats.

Emirates SkyCargo, the freight division of the airline, offers over 180 tons of cargo capacity a week on the route. The main imports into Abuja are expected to be machinery, chemicals, transport equipment and manufactured goods, while exports include leather, vegetables and foodstuffs.