The Emirates A380 has returned to Amman. The superjumbo arrived yesterday afternoon, following several months of absence from scheduled services. Going forward, it will fly to the Jordanian capital three times a week as part of the airline’s expanded 10 flights per week schedule.
The A380 returns to Amman
The Emirates A380 has been steadily making a comeback to passenger service, and this week it added another destination to its list. The iconic flagship aircraft touched down at Queen Alia International (AMM) in Amman, marking the airline’s return to the destination with the superjumbo.
The flight saw A6-EUR taking off from Dubai at just after 14:00 yesterday afternoon. Following the short two hour and 43-minute flight to Jordan, it landed in Amman at 14:56 local time. It’s the first time a regularly scheduled Emirates A380 has flown to Amman since March and is the first of many to be added to the network in the coming weeks.
Going forward, the Emirates A3480 will fly to Amman three times a week on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays. Outbound flights from Dubai leave as EK 903 at 14:05, arriving in Amman at 15:30 local time. The return flight, EK 904, leaves Amman at 17:10 and arrives back in Dubai at 22:00 local time.
Overall, Emirates will now fly to Amman 10 times a week, adding flights EK 905 and EK 906 to its schedule. EK 905 will depart Dubai at 22:15, touching down in Amman at 23:40 local time. The return, EK 906, will leave Amman at 01:45, arriving in Dubai at 06:40 local.
The airline says these timings have been planned to connect easily with onward flights from its Dubai hub. From there, passengers will have a short connection time for flights to destinations including Europe and the United States. The days that are not A380 services will see the airline flying its Boeing 777 on the route.
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Where is the Emirates A380 flying now?
To date, the A380 has made appearances for Emirates on routes to Cairo, Paris, London Heathrow, Guangzhou and Moscow. As such, Amman becomes the sixth destination to receive the A380 service since lockdown.
However, one more destination was treated to the A380 this week, and that was Manchester in the UK. Just before the UK went into its second lockdown, Emirates flew a one-off service to Manchester Airport (MAN), likely to move as many passengers as possible where they needed to go before non-essential travel was banned.
The aircraft touched down in Manchester at 11:15 local time yesterday, making it the first A380 to arrive in Manchester since March.
According to Planespotters.net, Emirates has reactivated just 10 of its 114 Airbus A380s to date. That leaves 104 still parked, and with second waves of COVID infections causing borders to slam shut again, it’s unlikely we’ll see many more reactivated this side of the New Year.
Nevertheless, it’s encouraging to see Emirates adding more destinations to its network with the superjumbo. It will be a welcome sight for lovers of the large Airbus, whose opportunity to fly onboard is becoming few and far between.