Emirates launching service to Porto

Starting 2nd July 2019 Emirates will be launching a 4x weekly service to Porto in Portugal.

The flights will operate on Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays, and depart Dubai as EK197 at 0915hrs and arrive in Porto at 1430hrs. The return is an overnight flight departing Porto at 1735hrs and arriving in Dubai at 0415hrs the next morning, flight number EK198. It will be operated by a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft with 8 First Class Private Suites, 42 Business Class seats (lie flat of course) and 310 economy class.

Emirates already operates a service to Lisbon on a twice-per-day basis thereby bringing a total of 18 flights to/from Portugal per week. And since Emirates only serve Madrid and Barcelona in Spain I would imagine the new Porto route to be a strategic destination for the North-western Iberia peninsula for both passenger and cargo movement as there is the nearby Leixões shipping port on the other side of the airport and also Vigo's Free Trade Zone in Spain just 150km away. Each flight offering around 18 metric tonnes of cargo capacity.

Obviously from my point of view it would be a great thing, especially since last week Air France also announced an increased offering to Porto. My argument is always the same – if you are able to book open jaw flights for a region the size of Portugal or even the Iberian Peninsula, then you can save yourself a whole day's travel to get back to your arrival airport.

And like last time, here's some drone footage we made from last summer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_qrlvtDy_M