Emirates Announces Flights from Dubai to West Africa

It now appears that Emirates has announced it will start flights from Dubai to Dakar come this September. In fact, on September 1st, Emirates will fly five times weekly to the west African destination. The flights will take place on Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Right now the plan is for the flight to leave Dubai at 9:55am on these days and arrive at Darkar’s Leopold Sedar Sernghor International Airport at 4pm. The return flight will depart Darkar around 5:40pm and arrive back in Dubai at 7:15am the following morning.

Apparently Emirates is hoping to run this route with three class A340-300 aircraft with 12 first, 42 business and 213 economy class seats. Dakar will be the airline’s 19th African destination. It will also be the very first time that a direct service has been given between the United Arab Emirates and Senegal (which is a country in west Africa). As of right now there are currently no direct flights to Dakar from the UK.

As of now Emirates has been growing ties with Senegal. It has announced a joint agreement in November to assist in the start up of Senegal Airlines. This is a new airline, which is due to start opening later this year. Emirates will be providing commercial support, technical expertise, training and aviation-related goods and services to the new carrier. Currently Dubai and the United Arab Emirates share an open skies agreement.

Karim Wade, who is the senior minister for the Senegal ministry of international cooperations, national planning, air transport and infrastructures, said that this is a new route that will deliver a significant boost to the nation’s trade. It is going to help out the overall commerce and tourism industries in the area as well.