Went along to the Emirates event at the Gateshead Hilton last night. In his speech, the President of Emirates told of his delight at the huge response in bookings from North East England. He expected the mix to be around 25% of passengers flying on business, and 75% for leisure. He was delighted with the very high level of awareness across the region of the new service and said he expected to increase aircraft capacity and frequency as the route grew. The Newcastle-Dubai route was a long-overdue addition to the Emirates family of services, which was shortly also to include non-stops from Dubai to Sao Paolo (15 hrs) and Houston (17 hrs). The first two Newcastle flights, which went out full, took passengers travelling on to 18 further destinations.
In his speech, Alan Shearer highlighted the sporting delights of Dubai, which he had sampled on a number of occasions already.