Emirates has pushed back the resumption of its daily seasonal service between Dubai and Zagreb from May 1 until July 1 as a result of the coronavirus Covid-19 outbreak. Emirates has published a tentative schedule outlining its operations for the coming months. The airline is expected to resume the majority of its services, albeit at a reduced frequency, from late May and early June. Starting July, flights to Zagreb will be maintained on a daily basis with the carrier’s Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, which has the capacity to seat 354 passengers. Further changes remain possible.
Following a two-week grounding, Emirates has recently begun operating special repatriation flights from Dubai to London, Brussels, Frankfurt, Paris and Zurich. The airline is in talks to raise billions of dollars in loans, on top of Dubai’s state bailout. The carrier is reaching out to local and international banks about the funding that will be in addition to the undisclosed amount of financial aid from the government. One of the options being discussed are bilateral loans, which are cheaper, can be agreed quickly and done in smaller tranches compared with syndicated facilities. No final decisions about the borrowing have been made.
Emirates’ partner, Flydubai, which maintains services to Belgrade, Dubrovnik, Tivat, Sarajevo and Skopje, has said it will resume regular services “when the time is right”, and for the time being will continue to run flights for repatriation purposes. “We look forward to resuming our operations when the time is right and we are working closely with the authorities”, Chief Commercial Officer, Hamad Obaidalla, said in a statement. Flydubai has operated a repatriation flight to Zagreb over the past weeks, in order for passengers to continue their journeys onwards on Croatia Airlines flights, as well as a number of cargo-only services to Podgorica.
Source: EX-Yu Aviation
