Emirates airline today announced the launch of its 13th weekly flight to the city from Dubai and introduction of first class on the route from March 29 to mark the completion of nine years of operations from Kolkata.

"With the launch of its 13th weekly flight and introduction of first class on the route, double announcement of this service marks ninth anniversary of the airline route," Emirates vice-president (India & Nepal operations) Essa Sulaiman Ahmad told reporters here. Ahmad said the new flight offers convenient onward connections to Emirates global network, including many of Emirates' 37 European, 17 Middle East and 20 African passenger destinations, he said.

With this additional service, Emirates would operate 186 weekly flights to 10 Indian destinations - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Kochi, Kozhikode and Thiruvananthapuram. Also on March 29, Emirates would begin to operate a larger Boeing 777-200ER on the route which features Emirates' renowned First Class service.

This new Boeing is an upgradation from the existing A330-200, with capacity for 274 passengers; 220 in Economy Class, 42 in Business Class and 12 First Class. Emirates would be the only airline operating First Class to Kolkata. The Boeing 777-200ER would operate as flights EK 570/EK571 daily. The new service and extra flight would represent a capacity increase of 250 seats in each direction per week.

"Emirates commenced flights to Kolkata on March 26, 2006 and since then have flown over 1.6 million people on this popular route," Ahmad said.