Announced in early September, the much anticipated addition of the Airbus A380 to the Christchurch airliner scene has come to fruition with Emirates introducing the superjet to their daily service from/to Sydney in lieu of the Boeing 777-300ER.
The flight originates in Dubai and stages via Sydney to arrive Christchurch at 1350 as EK412 - this inherits the service once operated to Auckland using the same flight number. Departure is scheduled for 1845 back to Sydney and Dubai as EK413.
Boeing 777-300 A6-EBQ operated the last EK419 Christchurch-Sydney-Bangkok-Dubai service departing NZ 30 October.
The first of the new Dubai-Sydney-Christchurch daily services was operated by Airbus A380 A6-EUG. This Airbus was only delivered to the airline on 25 October and is their 83rd A380!
Meanwhile, Emirates Dubai-Auckland-Dubai direct services have from today been upsized to the Airbus A380 having been serviced by the Boeing 777-200LR since its introduction earlier this year. The airline's Sydney-Auckland-Sydney service is now known as EK418/419 and operates from Dubai to Bangkok then Sydney and is operated by the A380. The last Boeing 777-200LR service was flown by A6-EWF on 30 October while the first Airbus A380 service was operated by A6-EUF on 31 October.
So from 31 October Auckland will receive 4 Emirates A380's and 1 Singapore Airlines A380 through until the end of March.
