The end of runway repairs and capacity caps at Dubai’s International Airport yesterday, after a scheduled closure of 80 days during which both runways were fully re-carpeted, has also signaled a return to normal schedules by Emirates and the return of airlines from other airports in the UAE they opted to use during the past nearly three months. Nairobi will now see the restoration of their two daily Emirates’ services which were reduced to just one flight per day, similar to a number of other destinations in Africa, after DXB’s largest airline had to reduce capacity by some 25 percent overall.

Dubai’s award-winning airline flies twice a day to Nairobi, twice a day to Dar es Salaam and once a day to Entebbe and has built a strong brand image in the region based on such factors as punctuality, in-flight service and connectivity via Dubai to the rest of the world, with more and more destinations served with the world’s largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380. Emirates now operates 50 of these giant aircraft but has yet to bring the A380 to any of the East African destinations as none of the airports is at present capable to handle the A380 with a dedicated gate position, catering for boarding and deplaning of the double deck aircraft. On the routes to East Africa, Emirates deploys a mix of Airbus A330, A340 and the B777.