United Arab Emirates carrier (UAE), Emirates Airlines has announced that it will launch a service to Mashhad in Iran, its second service to the Western Asian country.

From September 1, 2015, Emirates will operate a service to Mashhad with five weekly rotations, using an Airbus A330-200 aircraft. Departing Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from Dubai at 04:10am, Emirates will arrive at Mashhad International Airport at 07:00am, local time.

The return journey will depart Mashhad at 08:45am, arriving back into Dubai at 10:45am. Timings have been scheduled to allow for convenient onward connections via Dubai to destinations in the Gulf, the Far East and to major European cities such as Stockholm and points across the UK, home to some of the largest Iranian communities in the world.

Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, Divisional Senior Vice President Commercial Operations Centre, said: “Mashhad’s addition to our global network will enable us to provide flexibility and choice for customers creating new inbound and outbound markets for tourism. We look forward to boosting traffic in and out of Mashhad and drawing in visitors from a host of points across our global network including cities in Europe, India, Pakistan, the GCC, as well as Far East destinations like Bangkok.”

In addition to passenger operations, Emirates SkyCargo will offer 17 tonnes of cargo capacity each way between the two cities.

Mashhad is the second largest city in Iran after its capital, Tehran, and attracts more than 2 million foreign visitors per year. It is the second most active exhibition centre, and hosts a number of international exhibitions each year.

Last year, Emirates carried more than 500,000 passengers to and from Iran, which has 17 UNESCO world heritage sites, and is aiming to boost its total Travel and Tourism contribution to GDP to 7.5 percent overall.

Emirates recently operated a one-off A380 service to Tehran, reportedly to gauge the possibility of capacity expansion on the route. The airline’s Dubai hub has strong trade and investment links to Iran, with the majority of Iran’s trade with its neighbouring Gulf countries processed through Dubai – benefitting on aviation, construction, logistics and tourism in the Emirate.