The much-revered airline, Emirates has announced a new flight between Dubai and Mexico with a stop in Spain. This new flight will take-off from Dubai and will go to Mexico with a short layover in Spain. This is the fifth of its kind of “freedom flight” which is likely to receive some hard looks from rival airlines in the USA and Europe. It is also worth noting that this would the first Emirates flight to Mexico. The Dubai state-owned carrier remarked on Tuesday that it would start the flight on December 9 and it would fly to Mexico City International Airport via Barcelona.
Flight to Make a Stop in Barcelona Because of High Altitude of Mexico City
However, there is a reason why the flight would be making a stop at Barcelona. Emirates President, Tim Clark clarified the reason for the Barcelona stopover saying that the high-altitude of Mexico City airport makes it impossible to operate a direct flight from Dubai to Mexico City, and hence Barcelona appears as the obvious choice to make a stop. The Emirates President also said that the Mexico City-Barcelona route has long been neglected by other airlines and has remain underserved even with high demands from passengers. Aeromexico is the only other airline operating in this route.
Emirates and its Troubles with Fifth Freedom Flights
It is worth noting that the Fifth Freedom Rights allow an airline to fly between foreign countries as a part of services to and from its home country. However, Emirates’ use of this right has been criticised in the past. But courtesy of an official statement from Mexico’s tourism minister Miguel Torruco Marques, it can be confirmed that Mexico is in support of this new flight from Emirates. The US and European airlines have accused Emirates and other Gulf carriers of having an unfair advantage of state subsidies, however, responding to these allegations, the carriers have denied the accusations.
Only last year, UAE and Qatar both resolved the disputes with the US on the allegations that their airlines were subsidised. Similarly, back in 2016 Emirates had attempted to launch a direct flight to Panama, which would have been the world’s longest non-stop flight. However, failing to secure the required codeshare agreements, the airline could not initiate the route. But, last year Emirates started a new flight to Chile via Brazil. The new flight to Mexico City via Barcelona follows in this footsteps.