Emirates SkyCargo, freight division of Emirates Airline, will be operating scheduled cargo flights to 100 destinations across six continents during the month of July 2020.

Some of the new cities added to the air cargo carrier’s network including Athens, Fort Lauderdale, Glasgow, Los Angeles, Moscow and Rome.

Emirates SkyCargo’s network expansion is in response to the growing economic activity and demand for air cargo capacity from markets across the world along with Emirates’ increased passenger flight operations, according to a media release.

In addition to scheduled services, Emirates SkyCargo also operates a number of special charter flights every week to transport a range of commodities from Personal Protective Supplies (PPE) and pharmaceuticals to food and outsized machinery and components.

The freight division of Emirates offers an innovative range of cargo capacity options for businesses and exporters on its modern, wide-body aircraft fleet.

In addition to loading of cargo in the belly hold, Emirates SkyCargo has introduced loading of select cargo on the passenger seats and in the overhead bins of the passenger cabin of its Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, the release added.

Recently the carrier also modified 10 Boeing 777-300ER aircraft from its fleet by removing seats from the Economy Class in the passenger cabin to make room for additional cargo.

Emirates SkyCargo also operates 11 Boeing 777 F full freighters currently deployed to over 30 destinations every week.

650,000 refunds in eight weeks

Emirates says it has cleared nearly 650,000 refund requests in the last eight weeks, with a further half a million set to be processed with the next two months.

Back in April, the Gulf carrier pledged to clear half a million requests by August, and the airline now says that it passed the target by early June, “after expanding its processing capability from an average of 35,000 requests a month, to nearly 200,000”.

Referring to the coronavirus pandemic as “a black swan event no-one expected”, chief commercial officer Adnan Kazim said that cash had been ringfenced to honour refunds, and resources invested to expedite processing.

“Our average processing time for refunds has reduced from 90 days to 60, and as we see lower volumes of new requests we expect this rate to further improve. We still have over half a million refund requests to manage, and expect to clear these within the next 2 months.

“We’d like to thank our customers for their patience and trust, and to those who have opted to hold their ticket or rebooked to travel at a later time – we look forward to welcoming you onboard soon.”

Six on Emirates flight to Australia test corona positive

Six passengers who flew with Emirates from Dubai to Perth, Western Australia have tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in the country on July 1. The positive cases were only confirmed on Sunday and other passengers on the same flight have been advised to self-monitor for symptoms and are also likely to be tested before being allowed to leave quarantine.

In a statement, the Department of Health for the Government of Western Australia said the six new cases were all passengers on the roughly 11-hour Emirates flight EK420 between Dubai and Perth on July 1. The passengers are four women and two men aged between 40 and 64 years old.

Officials confirmed that all the cases were returning Western Australians from the metropolitan area of Perth but did not say whether they started their journeys in Dubai or had simply transited through the United Arab Emirates from a third country. The new cases represent a 66 percent increase in the number of confirmed COVID-19 patients in Western Australia.