LONDON – The first Airbus A380 to enter the U.S one year on since the start of the pandemic landed at John F. Kennedy Airport today. The A380 is being operated by UAE national flag carrier Emirates. The type’s return to the U.S marks an important step in the road to recovery for the aviation and travel industry. The flight took off from Dubai today at 08:43 GST, landing at JFK at 13:46 EDT, with the flight taking around 13 hours and 55 minutes.

The arrival of the aircraft is the first Emirates A380 to fly to JFK in over one year after the global COVID-19 pandemic caused a drop in demand for international travel, the airline had been operating one of its Boeing 777 aircraft on the route, but today with demand starting to recover we saw the Airbus A380 superjumbo return to the skies for the JFK route.

Emirates has confirmed that the service will operate on a daily frequency which shows that the airline believes the demand for travel will now continue to rise as the vaccination programs around the world continue to show signs of speeding up and opening up the world back to normal. In addition to the daily A380 service, the Boeing 777-300ER service from Dubai – Milan – JFK will also reopen, offering even more seat options and flight options for U.S leisure and business travellers.

While this is not the first A380 to operate flights to America since the pandemic began, it is the first time that we have seen emirates redeploy their flagship aircraft back onto the JFK service, and many will now hope that they can take this as a sign of things starting to improve as the aviation industry and the world attempt to rebuild and get back to a pre-covid state.