Plane with world’s highest capacityto be in Barcelona this summer

Barcelona (CNA).- The airplane with the highest passenger capacity in the world will be at Barcelona El Prat airport, thanks to the Emirates airline. The aircraft will be in the Catalan capital on the 25^th of June and on the 16^th, 29^th, and 31^st of July, and can carry a maximum of 615 passengers, 557 in economy and 58 in business class, stated the CEO of Emirates in Spain, Fernando Suárez de Góngora, during lunch with the media on Wednesday. The airplane is a modified A-380, and will take advantage of the international tourism in Barcelona: Góngora commented that “it is a promising sign, and we are convinced it will be filled completely”. While it has been “a real challenge”, according to the CEO of the company, to fill the flights, especially now with more airline competition, Barcelona is becoming more and more popular as a tourist destination “especially in Asian markets in general, and in the Middle East in particular”. Góngora also noted that Barcelona is much more powerful as a recipient than as an issuer of passengers. 

The Emirates airline will bring the aircraft with the highest passenger capacity in the world to Barcelona El Prat Airport on the 25^th June and on the 16^th, 29^th and 31^st of July. This information was released by the CEO of the company in Spain, Fernando Suárez de Góngora, during lunch with the media on Wednesday. The plane is an A-380, modified to accommodate the maximum number of passengers, and takes advantage of the strong demand for flights to the Catalan capital during the summer. The aircraft can carry a maximum of 615 passengers on board, specifically, 557 in economy and 58 in business class, and won’t have first-class seats, to make more space. The announcement coincided with the release, two weeks ago, of the second A-380 aircraft that Emirates operates from El Prat and which will replace the B-777 currently used on one of the company’s two daily flights between Barcelona and Dubai.

The company has already sold almost all of the places on these four flights that Emirates will operate, with an A-380 modified to accommodate 615 passengers. Speaking to the media, Suárez de Góngora said that Emirate’s commitment to bringing this higher capacity A-380 to Barcelona has become a reality because the prospects of the airline are of “full bookings” during summer, especially for the circulation of international tourism that the Catalan capital has. “It is a promising sign, and we are convinced it will be filled completely”, he concluded.


In this sense, the general manager of Emirates in Spain noted that the airline operates the Barcelona-Dubai route with a second daily A-380 aircraft, replacing the B-777, which began on the 1^st of June 2016. With this addition, Emirates has increased by around 30% its current supply from El Prat, with a total of 2,068 seats per day, or 14,476 seats per week, in both directions of travel. That’s triple the 720 seats daily of the first Emirates flight from Barcelona in 2012.

Suárez de Góngora highly praised the fourth anniversary of Emirate’s activity in the Catalan market, and has described filling the two A-380 aircrafts that cover the Dubai-Barcelona daily flight in both directions as “a real challenge”, especially now with competition from other airlines. “Barcelona is a popular destination for tourists worldwide and it’s growing rapidly, especially in Asian markets in general, and the Middle East in particular," said the director, adding that the Catalan market is more powerful as a recipient of passengers than as an issuer.