It took a long time for United Arab Emirates (UAE) carrier Emirates Airline to enter the Netherlands market, but it has shown rapid capacity growth since it made its debut on the Dubai – Amsterdam route in May 2010. After replacing a mix of Boeing 777-200LR and Boeing 777-300ER variants with an Airbus A380 on its daily service in August last year, the airline will now introduce an additional 3,700 seats into the market each week with the launch of a second daily rotation from December this year.

The second rotation will be launched from December 4, 2013 and will be operated with a Boeing 777-200LR, configured with 266 seats in a three-class configuration - eight seats in First Class, 42 in Business Class and 216 in Economy Class. The new flight will operate as an overnight departure from the Dutch capital, complement the existing daytime operation and will provide additional connection opportunities at Dubai International Airport.

There is a long history of trade between the Netherlands and the Arab region, and trade between the Netherlands and the UAE runs into billions of US dollars annually with a large number of Dutch companies have a presence in the UAE. The Dutch community in the UAE consists of more than 5,000 Dutch nationals and 300 Dutch companies and bilateral trade between the Netherlands and UAE is currently valued at over US$3.6 billion.

Despite these obvious market economic opportunities, flights between Netherlands and UAE have been dominated by KLM up until recently, although Emirates has been flying cargo into Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport since 1994. Key exports from the Netherlands include flowers, vegetables, plants, meat, seafood, automotive and ship spare parts and electronics.

“Our decision to add another daily service to Amsterdam is a direct result of a surge in customer demand. The enhanced capacity and schedule will offer our customers more choice when travelling between Amsterdam and Dubai and onwards to a multitude of destinations in the Indian subcontinent, Africa, Far East and Australasia,” said Hubert Frach, Divisional Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations West, Emirates Airline. “Amsterdam has also proven to be a strong market for First Class and Business Class travel, so there is no doubt that growth remains a key objective for Emirates in the Netherlands.”

Emirates will hope to secure a high percentage of this premium traffic and its frequency growth will enable it to better compete with fellow UAE hub carrier, Etihad Airways, which entered the Amsterdam market earlier this year. The carrier launched a daily flight from Abu Dhabi in May 2013 but with a codeshare arrangement with KLM it means both carriers effectively provide a double daily offering – one on its own branded aircraft and one with its partner carrier. This connection option also provides onward opportunities across Europe through the KLM regional and short-haul network.

In 2012, an estimated 186,000 bi-directional O&D passengers travelled between Amsterdam and Dubai with around 43 per cent of this total travelling on Emirates’ existing daily service. The UAE carrier competes with a daily offering from KLM and seasonal links from Arkefly and Transavia. Garuda Indonesia had operated its Jakarta – Amsterdam route via Dubai up until the end of last year before switching the transit point to Abu Dhabi following a marketing partnership with Etihad.

The point-to-point demand on the Emirates flight accounted for 29.8 per cent of the total traffic, according to MIDT data. The remaining 190,000 passengers are connecting to or from other destinations via Dubai International Airport with the largest passenger flows being to Jakarta, Indonesia; Bangalore, India; Bangkok, Thailand; Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Sydney, Australia.

In the table below we look at the rapid growth in capacity between the Netherlands and UAE following the arrival of the two Middle East hub carriers in the market. This year is the first year more than one million seats are being offered and continues a growth trend that has seen capacity more than treble since 2004.

Already this year, Emirates has launched services to Warsaw, Algiers and Tokyo Haneda. The airline has announced plans to launch services to Stockholm Arlanda from September 4, 2013, while from October 1, 2013 Emirates will commence flights to Clark in the Philippines as well as link the transatlantic route between Milan and New York. In Africa, Emirates will launch a linked service to Conakry in Guinea from October 27, 2014 and an expansion into Eastern Europe will see Emirates launch services to Kiev, Ukraine from January 16, 2014.