United Arab Emirates (UAE) national carrier Emirates Airline has announced that it will upgauge one of its three daily services between Dubai and Perth to its flagship Airbus A380 aircraft, demonstrating the growth of Perth as a global destination.

The deployment of the Super Jumbo will take effect from May 1, 2015 and will mean that alongside its partner Qantas, a total of seven daily A380 services will operate from Dubai to Australia from next summer.

Emirates will use one of its three-class, 491seat A380s on the Perth route, offering 401 seats in Economy Class on the main deck and 76 fully flat-bed, mini-pods in Business Class and 14 First Class Private Suites on the upper deck. The change from a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft will see an increase in capacity of 136 seats per flight and 1,904 seats per week, reinforcing Emirates’ commitment to business and leisure passengers visiting the capital city of Western Australia.

“Emirates looks forward to being the first airline to bring the state-of-the-art A380 to Perth, offering residents the chance to experience this revolutionary aircraft,” said Barry Brown, divisional senior vice president, commercial operations – East, Emirates Airline.

“For business and leisure travellers, the Dubai-Perth route is a popular choice and our new Emirates A380 service will be instrumental in helping the airline meet this growing passenger demand as well as deliver substantial economic benefits through travel connections and inbound seats,” he added.

This announcement caps off a range of recent upgrades to Emirates’ Australian services, including the introduction of a daily A380 to Brisbane and Melbourne, a double daily A380 to Sydney and a daily Adelaide service.

Emirates is the world’s largest operator of the A380 as our regular monthly analysis on the aircraft’s global operations highlights. It currently has a fleet of 56 aircraft and 84 on order.

Over the past year, 12 new A380s have been delivered to the carrier and the type has been deployed to ten new scheduled destinations: Barcelona, London Gatwick, Zurich, Mumbai, Frankfurt, Dallas, Kuwait, San Francisco, Milan and Houston. Glasgow, Manila, Tehran and Vienna have also experienced the flagship Emirates aircraft when it touched down on their tarmac for a one off showcase in 2014.

Emirates has served the Perth market for over ten years, adding the second daily flight from September 2006 and third daily offering from March 2013. The airline carried an estimated 450,000 passengers on the route in the first nine months of this year with loads of approximately 83.7 per cent from Dubai and 81.6 per cent from Perth.

In our analysis, below, we look at the passenger flows on the route over the past five years. The data clearly shows the major role the wider Emirate Airline network via Dubai International Airport plays in supporting the multiple frequencies on this city pair. Although local traffic significantly grew in 2013 it accounted for just a quarter share of the total traffic, with transfer demand via Dubai accounting for 68.8 per cent of passengers, down from 80+ per cent in the previous four years.

Data provided by