Johannesburg welcomed its first scheduled Emirates A380 service recently, as flight EK761 from Dubai arrived at OR Tambo International Airport.

Johannesburg, the economic powerhouse of South Africa, is the first destination for the double-decker in Africa and the 16th destination on the Emirates A380 network.

“The demand for Emirates’ services in and out of Johannesburg has always been high, with passenger growth of more than 27 per cent over the last year,” said Jean Luc Grillet, Emirates’ senior vice president, commercial operations, Africa.

Over the last year, Emirates has carried more than 900,000 passengers across its three South African gateways – Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg.

In the first eight months of this year, the airline also carried more than 37,500 tonnes of high value cargo on its South African routes, with exports up 26 per cent from the same period in 2010.

Emirates is the largest operator of the environmentally-friendly double-decker aircraft, flying the A380 to London Heathrow (double-daily), Manchester, Paris Charles de Gaulle, Toronto, Seoul, Bangkok, Beijing, Shanghai, Jeddah, New York, Hong Kong, Sydney and Auckland.

The Johannesburg A380 service operates daily as EK 761, departing Dubai at 4.40 a.m. (Dubai time) and arriving at OR Tambo International Airport at 10.50 a.m. (South Africa time).

The return flight, EK762, departs Johannesburg at 2.10 p.m. (South Africa time) and arrives in Dubai at 12.10 a.m. (Dubai time) the following day.

Emirates operates flights on a daily schedule from Malta to Dubai via Larnaka, Cyprus.