Emirates Air to enter trans-Tasman market in August

10.00am

Dubai owned Emirates Air is set to begin flying trans-Tasman routes from August 1.

The airline will introduce two flights daily to Auckland, one each from Sydney and Melbourne, with a third daily flight starting on October 26 from Brisbane.

A spokesman for Emirates told National Radio this morning the airline was pleased to be able to extend its Dubai to Australia services to New Zealand.

"We have an opportunity and our aircraft already fly all the way to Sydney and Melbourne, and Brisbane in the future. As such it was very easy to get them into the market because of the fact that we already fly into these points.

"We believe that we can offer a good service and we are very confident about our ability to compete."

The spokesman said the airline hoped the service would improve the flow of people, goods and services between New Zealand and the Middle East and Africa.

The entry of Emirates Air into the trans-Tasman market may provide the competition with Air New Zealand and Qantas services that the Australasian airlines require for their proposed alliance to be approved by competition watchdogs.

Emirates has had theoretical access to the New Zealand market for some time under an open skies agreement but was only granted permission to fly trans-Tasman routes by the Australian government late last month.

Air New Zealand chief executive Ralph Norris was this morning keen to emphasise the additional competition Emirates would bring to what was already a competitive route.

Emirates was set to become the 12th airline flying the Tasman, he told National Radio.

"I believe it just underlines the fact that anybody really can enter this market and compete on the Tasman... It's probably the most highly competed stretch of water after the Atlantic in the world," he said.

- NZPA