If there is an airport out there that has close ties to the Airbus A380, it is, of course, Dubai International (DXB). The UAE hub sees dozens of Emirates superjumbos coming and going every day, but it is not the only carrier to fly the quadjet there. Indeed, British Airways has now extended its Dubai A380 flights to next winter.

Adding to the schedule

According to figures made available by Cirium, an aviation analytics company, data as of last week showed that British Airways was planning to stop using the Airbus A380 on its route from London Heathrow (LHR) to Dubai at the end of March. This would have coincided, more or less, with the start of the new IATA summer season.

However, the site now shows that the UK flag carrier and oneworld founding member has added the four-engine behemoth back to the London-Dubai schedule for some of the winter season. Indeed, Cirium now lists a daily rotation from Heathrow to Dubai and back from November 1st, 2024, through to January 31st, 2025.

With seven Heathrow - Dubai rotations a week scheduled with the A380 from November to January, BA will offer a weekly capacity of 3,283 seats with the jet during this period. Cirium shows that December 2023 and January 2024 also offered this frequency, although November 2023 was a little higher (up to nine a week).

You can find flights on the route here.

Further details

In terms of the timings of these recently added flights, the outbound service (numbered as flight BA107) will depart London Heathrow Airport at 12:45 local time. While this represents a relatively leisurely departure with no need to arrive at the airport at the crack of dawn, it will get into Dubai rather late in comparison.

Indeed, with a scheduled block time of seven hours, arrival into the UAE is planned (accounting for the time difference) for 23:45. Meanwhile, the return leg (numbered as flight BA106) has a much longer block time, and is scheduled to cover the 3,420 miles (5,504 km / 2,972 NM) between Dubai and West London in eight hours and five minutes. It will depart at 02:10, and land at 06:15.

According to aeroLOPA, BA configures its A380s in a four-class configuration, with a capacity of 469 passengers. This figure comprises 303 World Traveller (economy) seats, 55 in World Traveller Plus (premium economy), 97 Club World (business class) flatbeds, and just 14 of the UK flag carrier's exclusive First Class suites.

Dwarfed by Emirates' A380 operations

Of course, with just a handful of A380s in its fleet, British Airways operations with the type will always be relatively limited on any route. In stark contrast, Cirium's data shows that UAE flag carrier Emirates currently has a whopping six daily rotations between Heathrow and Dubai scheduled with the superjumbo scheduled between November and January, offering around 90,000 seats a month each way.