Emirates Uses The Boeing 777 To Launch 3rd Daily Mauritius Service

Driven by high demand, Emirates has increased Dubai to Mauritius from 2x daily to 3x daily. It'll take effect from October 1st, less than two months away. While Emirates has served Mauritius for many years, it has had 3x daily flights on just 69 occasions, most recently on January 4th, 2020.

What's happening?

From October 1st, Emirates will serve the 3,144 miles (5,060km) between its Dubai hub and Mauritius 3x daily. The additional service is EK709/EK710, operated by a B777-300ER, supplementing the A380 on the others, with first class available on all flights. The schedule is shown below, with all times local:

To Mauritius:

Dubai to Mauritius: EK701, 02:35-09:10 (block time of 6h 35m); A380
Dubai to Mauritius: EK703, 10:05-16:40 (6h 35m); A380
Dubai to Mauritius: EK709, 22:10-04:45+1 (6h 35m); B777-300ER ← first flight October 1st

From Mauritius:

Mauritius to Dubai: EK710, 06:30-13:05 (6h 35m) ← first flight October 2nd
Mauritius to Dubai: EK702, 16:35-23:10 (6h 35m)
Mauritius to Dubai: EK704, 21:50-04:25+1 (6h 35m)

When writing, EK702 is en route back to Dubai as 'Emirates Five Echo'. Image: Flightradar24.

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Mauritius' key markets

Analyzing booking data for 2019, the last year unaffected by coronavirus, shows that the Dubai-Mauritius point-to-point (P2P) market was reasonably large. The route carried approximately 132,000 P2P roundtrip passengers, and a massive chunk flew Emirates.

That means that, across the whole year, an average of 181 passengers daily each way (PDEW) only flew between Dubai and Mauritius. It was (and remains) a sizable P2P market.

Regarding transit passengers, Europe is the main continent for Mauritius demand. In 2019, these were the largest city-level European markets from Mauritius across all airlines and at city level. Between them, they had over one million passengers and PDEW of 1,384:

Paris: 296,000 roundtrip passengers across all airlines
London: 247,000
Frankfurt: 90,000
Zurich: 57,000
Milan: 55,000
Geneva: 41,000
Munich: 39,000
Vienna: 29,000
Marseille: 25,000
Rome: 24,000
Amsterdam: 23,000
Manchester: 22,000
Nice: 21,000
Lyon: 21,000
Düsseldorf: 20,000

Frankfurt, where this photo was taken, was Mauritius' third-largest Europe market in 2018. Photo: Simple Flying - Tom Boon.

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The Middle East to Mauritius

Only Emirates and Saudia operate between the Middle East and Mauritius, with Saudia offering 3x weekly flights from Jeddah with B787-9s. Mauritius has not seen Qatar Airways or Etihad Airways.

Saudia launched Mauritius in September 2017, seemingly driven by religious traffic and the Mauritian diaspora. The route was previously served on a very time-limited basis by Air Mauritius, with both the A340-300 and B767-200 deployed.

The new airlines are planned to occupy different niches from each other, and won't compete directly with Saudia. Photo: Getty Images.

Emirates' 3x daily+ routes

In the week Mauritius rises to 3x daily, it'll join 23 other Emirates routes with 3x daily flights or more. They'll average 80 flights daily and be responsible for 42 in every 100 Emirates services. They include Istanbul Airport, Europe's busiest airport by passengers in June. They are Dubai to: