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Emirates sharply increases flight frequencies from the UK

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With the UAE now on the United Kingdom’s Amber List, holidays in Dubai are back on the agenda this Autumn for anyone who is fully vaccinated, with no quarantine required.

Emirates announced a substantial increase in its UK services yesterday, and will be operating 73 flights per week by mid-October.

This will include:

Emirates sharply increases frequencies from the UK
  • Six flights per day from London Heathrow
  • Two flights per day (A380) from Manchester
  • One flight per day from Glasgow
  • 10 flights per week from Birmingham

At present, Heathrow has three daily A380 departures. This will expand gradually to six over the next three months, of which four will be on an A380. It puts Emirates back to its pre-pandemic level at Heathrow, albeit the Gatwick and Stansted services have yet to be restored.

British Airways has dropped its Abu Dhabi service entirely and is currently only showing 1-2 Dubai flights per day in October. It is likely that this number will increase, especially over half term when this is one of the most popular long haul routes.


How to earn Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards

How to earn Emirates Skywards miles from UK credit cards (March 2024)

Emirates Skywards does not have a UK credit card.  However, you can earn Emirates Skywards miles by converting Membership Rewards points earned from selected UK American Express cards.

Cards earning Membership Rewards points include:

Membership Rewards points convert at 1:1 into Emirates Skywards miles which is an attractive rate.  The cards above all earn 1 Membership Rewards point per £1 spent on your card, which converts to 1 Emirates Skywards mile. The Gold card earns double points (2 per £1) on all flights you charge to it.

Comments (68)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Bagoly says:

    Style pedant point of the day: 🙂

    I understand the (American?) journalist rule of “numbers over nine as digits” but I suggest that for clear business writing that rule has lower priority than “in lists of the same thing, use a consistent format”.
    So in this case “Ten flights” rather than “10 flights”.
    But if the numbers were different, “6, 9, 10, 22” rather than “six, nine, 10, 22”.

    • Rhys says:

      As you can tell, we don’t have a style guide 😉

      • Rob says:

        We do have a style guide on this, actually, which is that numbers from 1-9 are written as words (unless part of a list) but 10+ are written as digits. This is the generally accepted route.

        • sayling says:

          Numbers from one to nine, then, rather than 1-9, Rob? 😉

          You got told, Rhys! 😆

        • Chris says:

          Shows how out of date I am. I was taught 1-12 written as words. That was in the early 80s

    • Andrew says:

      When I did my O’Grade and Higher Secretarial, the rule was always one is always typed as one, but all other digits were left as digits. The rule can be broken for clarity. “Buy six 6 packs”.

      (I did it to avoid French, being able to do 80wpm has proven incredibly useful over the years.)

      Bizarrely, I have problems with clinical data as a consequence of people doing stupid things with numbers. There are people who actually put in the letter “o” or letter “i” instead of ones or zeroes.

      • John says:

        Yes the number of people typing H-twenty or C-zero-two annoys me.

        Once a doctor typed out a time as 160O (it was actually them, not the secretary)

  • Pete M says:

    I don’t suppose we have a reopening date for the T5 Plaza Premium? Getting a bit tired of the bacon baps with the hash brown inside them…

  • RLS says:

    “(includes ‘luxury restrooms’ which, again, are presumably a novelty in Crystal Palace”

    Ironic, given that is where luxury toilets began:

    “One of the Great Exhibition’s landmark inventions was the introduction of the UK’s first paid-for flushing public toilet, when visitors spent one penny to experience a clean toilet seat, a towel, a comb and a shoe shine. Records show that 675,000 pennies were spent. When the exhibition finished, the Crystal Palace was moved to Sydenham, and the toilets were set to be closed down.”

    https://www.royalparks.org.uk/media-centre/press-releases/toilet-remains-from-spend-a-penny-exhibition-uncovered-in-hyde-park

  • DB2020 says:

    Prior to the pandemic starting, Emirates used to have six A380s daily to Heathrow, so I don’t think that they will be returning to the full schedule yet in terms of the total number of seats when they resume the six daily flights.

    The seat layout on the B777 means that I will only fly on their A380 fleet to Dubai and beyond.

    • Blair says:

      Agreed DB. LHR still the best bet if u did want to book as u can generally keep swapping fee-free to the remaining A380 flights on your departure day if your original booking gets swapped to a 777. I’n only risking point to point to DXB though; too risky getting shunted to a 777 on routes further east.

    • Alex Sm says:

      Given this amazing and highly ambitious advert, EK values the UK market VERY HIGHLY (pun intended!)

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQHhYRuaEtM

      • Rob says:

        They are using the same ad in different countries, the wording is CGI’d even though the ad is real.

        • Alex Sm says:

          I thought that she must have been using blanc sheets! And you just confirmed that. Thanks! It’s amazing anyway

  • Ian says:

    Slightly OT but relevant to Hilton: something very odd has happened in the past 24 hours to the Saved to Card offers on my BA Amex.
    Yesterday I logged in to pay my monthly bill and, as usual, checked for new offers. I also checked the 3 in the Saved section so I don’t forget them!
    Today there are only 2 – the missing one is the “Spend £200 with Hilton and get a £50 credit” (expiry date 31/08). It’s also vanished from my wife’s Nectar Amex (she’s already spent over £160 with Hilton and was aiming to get to £200)
    Phillipines call centre just denied the offer was ever there – suspicious!

    Anyone else had the same issue, or know what’s going on?

    • Rob says:

      Covering this in an article tomorrow.

      • Ian says:

        Update: Brighton Call Centre was more sympathetic but no more knowledgeable. Too late to escalate this last evening, but a manager is due to call me today (I’m not holding my breath).
        P.S. Can’t see anything in today’s HfP by the way.

        • Rob says:

          The offers are back, or at least mine were last night, so I pulled it.

          • Ian says:

            Yes, thanks Rob – ours are also back now!

            Very strange though. Wonder what would have happened if I’d spent over £200 with Hilton on August 12th?!

    • Sloth says:

      Same with the IHG one has disappeared…

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