Emirates to resume full operations to Bangkok

This announcement closely follows yesterday's declaration of re-instating Emirates' scheduled Dubai-Bangkok-Dubai service and operating two additional relief flights to clear the previous backlog of stranded passengers.

As Bangkok's international airport slowly resumes operations, Emirates has been escalating both its recovery and scheduled services.

Effective 5th December, Emirates EK372/373 will operate daily between Dubai and Bangkok. EK372 will depart Dubai daily at 09:40hrs and touch down in Bangkok at 18:40hrs. Return flight EK373 will depart Bangkok at 20:25hrs and arrive in Dubai at 23:55hrs.

Effective 6th December, Emirates EK8384/8385 will operate daily between Dubai and Bangkok, bringing the airline's service to a double-daily. EK8384 will depart Dubai at 12:40hrs, arriving in Bangkok at 21:30hrs. Return flight EK8385 will take off from Bangkok at 01:05hrs, arriving in Dubai at 04:35hrs. The flight timing ensures European and North American travellers returning from Bangkok will connect seamlessly to Emirates' onward flights.

From 9th December the flight will re-instate its Hong Kong landing and operate as EK384/385, Dubai-Bangkok-Hong Kong-Bangkok-Dubai.

Effective 9th December, Emirates EK418/419 will re-instate its Bangkok landing and operate as Dubai-Bangkok-Sydney-Auckland-Sydney-Bangkok-Dubai. This will bring the airline's Bangkok service to a triple daily, and signal the full resumption of Bangkok services.

Emirates is presently transporting additional flight and cabin crew to Thailand in preparation for the start of normal operations.

Richard Vaughan, Emirates Senior Vice President Commercial Operations, East Asia and Australasia, said:

"After conducting a comprehensive security and infrastructure review of Suvarnabhumi Airport, we have concluded that it is the right time to resume full Bangkok operations. Our first priority remains to clear the backlog of passengers stranded in Bangkok, after which we will accept new bookings. We thank our customers for their patience during this challenging period, and regret the inconvenience caused by factors beyond our control."

The airline's previous three recovery flights have brought back close to 800 passengers from U-Taphao and Chiang Mai Airports. These included British, German, French, Italian, American, and Iranian passengers that connected to various Emirates flights to Europe, North America and Middle East. Emirates operated the relief services with a Boeing 777 aircraft to cater to a larger capacity and ensure that maximum number of passengers were being recovered from Bangkok.

In the lead-up to normalisation of all operations, Emirates' passengers were allowed to re-route their travel to/from alternative airports in Thailand and other South East Asian points such as Kuala Lumpur, Singapore or Hong Kong. The airline's Thailand team were ensuring passengers were well cared for by organising hotel accommodation, re-routing and re-booking passengers, organising road transportation under security cover to bring passengers to airports from which Emirates was operating recovery flights.