Emirates aims for a trifecta with London Stansted

Emirates will serve three London airports next year when it begins flying its new Boeing 777-300ER to London Stansted from June 8. The move means Emirates will serve London with 10 flights daily through its services to Stansted, Gatwick and Heathrow. It will be one of seven UK gateways, including Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester and Glasgow. The Gulf carrier said it was attracted to Stansted by the thriving business community in London’s North east and the 7.5 million people in its catchment area. It noted more than 25 big global companies had operations in the wider Cambridge-Petersborough area, including Airbus, Astra Zeneca and GSK. Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, Singapore and Mumbai are also the most popular business destinations from the East of England and the airline says it serves all of these destinations through its Dubai hub. “There is a clear demand for this service from both business and leisure travellers and we anticipate that this news will be warmly received both across our global network, as well as by the business community based in the Stansted catchment area,’’ Emirates president Tim Clark said in the announcement. The airline’s new three-class Boeing 777-300ERs offers the airline’s new first class as well as 42 business class and 306 economy class seats. A fully-enclosed first-class suite  incorporates design features inspired by car manufacturer Mercedes Benz and offers six seats in a 1-1-1 layout with 40 sq. ft of personal space and floor-to-ceiling sliding doors. The cabin features a seat that reclines into a fully flat bed and can be placed in a “zero-gravity” position inspired by NASA and designed to give a feeling of relaxation and weightlessness. A new innovation is a “virtual window’’ for suites in the middle aisle which project the view from outside the aircraft using real-time camera technology. Other cabins on the new planes have also been refreshed as part of a multi-million-dollar overhaul.