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Emirates and JetBlue open shared route to connect San José and Dubai

 

  • Costa Rica “a stopover from Dubai” will be at the center of the promotion of the country as a tourist destination.
  • Emirates Airlines will help connect Costa Rica with the Middle and Far East and with Africa.

The Technical Council of Civil Aviation approved the request from Emirates Airlines and JetBlue Airways for the operation of flights under a shared code between San José and Dubai via points in the United States. Emirates is one of the most sophisticated airlines in the world, flying with a fleet of 244 planes, all of which are Airbus 380 or Boeing 777-300, to more than 160 countries directly or with a shared flight. The base for the company’s operations is the Dubai International Airport.

This airport, with 78 million passengers traveling through it last year, will help Costa Rica connect directly from Dubai to the markets and destinations of the Middle and Far East and Africa, opening an important niche for the attraction of tourism and investments to the country.

The United Arab Emirates have shown interest in Costa Rica. Since the year 2010, an airline services agreement was negotiated and a Memorandum of Understanding was signed, establishing overarching elements that are being made concrete today with the operation of the shared code.

The concept of a shared code consists in a cooperation agreement in which an airline partners with another to be able to reach other destinations to which it would not have direct access at that point in time.

In this case, Emirate Airlines has five weekly flights from Dubai to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, five weekly flights from Dubai to Orlando, Florida, and one daily flight from Dubai to JFK Airport, New York City.

In each case, these flights will connect with JetBlue flights from Fort Lauderdale and Orlando to San José, and from New York City to Liberia.

The shared code requested by the companies from the General Directorate of Civil Aviation includes all of the JetBlue destinations with routes to Costa Rica. They correspond to the routes Orlando- San José- Orlando, New York- Liberia- New York and Fort Lauderdale-San José- Fort Lauderdale.

In the case of the New York-Liberia flight, the government negotiated the beginning of JetBlue’s MINT service beginning on December 15, 2018, with an A321 plane that seats 159 and includes, for the first time on this route, 16 fully reclining business seats (called ‘business flat’).

The Vice President and Chancellor of the Republic, Epsy Campbell, showed her satisfaction at the news.

“I am especially pleased to learn of the success of the work carried out by the Costa Rican Embassy in the United Arab Emirates, along with our colleagues in the Chancellery and the Costa Rican Tourism Board. We have demonstrated that there is inter-institutional capacity to work successfully for the benefit of the country. Economic diplomacy is an important tool for development and the progress of our society”, she said.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Tourism, Maria Amalia Revelo, noted that “this is the first step of the long path that awaits us in opening to the Middle Eastern market and to destinations further afield. We hope that in the medium term, we can begin to make headway into various markets with effective actions that promote travel not only to the Middle East, but also to the connecting destinations, including India, South Africa, Australia and some parts of Asia”.

Emirates Holidays, the tourism business that is part of the Emirates Group, will promote Costa Rica as a destination within the Americas.

Costa Rica and the United Arab Emirates have had reciprocal embassies in San José and Abu Dhabi since 2017 and 2018, respectively. Citizens of both countries do not need a visa to travel between the states, which have signed 11 international documents within a single year.

Dubai will be the host of the next World’s Fair, EXPO 2020 Dubai, which will take place from October 2020 to April 2021