In May 2019, the Emirates liner service celebrates its 15th anniversary on the route from Vienna to Dubai. Rene Patek has been at the helm of the Austrian air cargo division of the Arabian airline just as long. Meanwhile, more than 10,000 tonnes of cargo are flown from Vienna every year.
Since 1 May 2004, Emirates Airline connects Vienna with Dubai on a daily basis. In March 2011, this link was expanded by a second daily non-stop flight. “So far we count more than 16,000 flights from Vienna to Dubai and back”, informs the airline in a press release.
Starting from Vienna, Emirates SkyCargo daily offers 35 tonnes of air freight capacity in total on its scheduled service in the afternoon (Airbus A380 with 15 tonnes of payload) and the evening flight with a Boeing 777-300ER, which can take up to 20 tonnes of cargo per flight.
“The requests for maindeck pallets have become less in recent years. Therefore, there is seldom a need for slots on the scheduled freight services ex Frankfurt, Maastricht, Amsterdam and Brussels,” says Rene Patek in an interview with the LogEastics newspaper.
There is a great demand for transport solutions from Austria to destinations in South Africa, India, Southeast Asia (Singapore, Guangzhou, Hong Kong), Australia, New Zealand, triggered by exports of companies from the automotive, machinery, pharmaceutical/healthcare, lifestyle and spare parts industries.
15 years of Emirates in Austria at a glance
- May 1, 2004: Maiden flight with an Airbus A330-200, with four weekly flights initially
- 15 June 2004: Increase of four weekly flights to daily flights
- October 26, 2008: Emirates now serves the route every day with a B777-300ER, the largest passenger aircraft ever to land at Vienna International Airport.
- March 27, 2011:
Increase of the frequency to 13 weekly flights; since 2014 two daily flights.
May 26, 2014: On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of Emirates in Austria, the Emirates A380 will land for the first time as a scheduled flight in Vienna. - July 1, 2016: Emirates launches its A380 liner service to Vienna. The A380 is still the largest passenger aircraft in the world, and set new standards in civil aviation when it was put into service.
- December 1, 2018: On the second daily flight, Emirates uses the airline’s second flagship in next to the Airbus A380, the Boeing 777-300ER with the product ‘Game Changer’.
- Expansion of capacity from initially around 2,380 seats to currently over 12,200 per week (round trip).
- Since 2004, Emirates has carried more than 4.1 million passengers on the Vienna-Dubai route.
- Emirates currently employs a total of 33 pilots and 29 flight attendants from Austria. A total of 106 Austrians work for Emirates.
