Emirates adds Singapore to Penang flights from 9 April, great Economy fares available

Emirates has just announced that it will be launching a new service from Dubai to Penang via Singapore. This adds a new fifth freedom route between Singapore and Penang. Daily flights from Dubai to Penang via Singapore will start on 9 April 2020.

This flight will be operated with a Boeing 777-300ER aircraft in a 3-class configuration. The flight schedule for this route is as follows:

Currently, these are Emirates’ existing flights between Singapore and Dubai (Mar 2020 schedules):

After the launch of the Dubai – Penang – Singapore service, these will be the revised flight schedules between Singapore and Dubai (Aug 2020 Schedule):

Extremely affordable Economy Saver fares

I’m not sure if Emirates is running a sale to celebrate this new route but I have found some extremely cheap Economy Saver fares on Emirates which include checked baggage.

Here’s a sample itinerary for a weekend trip to Penang during the National Day long weekend:

Frankly, S$117 with 25 kg of checked bags and the ability to earn Skywards miles is a steal.

Book your Emirates tickets here

For comparison, here’s a similar itinerary from AirAsia (S$177) that does not include checked bags:

If you wanted an apples to apples (i.e full service to full service) comparison, here’s the same route on SilkAir (S$182) on the exact same dates with similar timings:

I’m not sure how long these incredible fares from Emirates will last, so book them quickly if you intend to head to Penang.

Opportunity to access Qantas First Lounge

The new Qantas First Lounge Singapore opened last December to much fanfare. Its impressive decor and awesome dining menu makes it one of the best (if not the best) lounge in Changi Airport at the moment.

Emirates and Qantas have reciprocal lounge access policies so  if you’re flying on an Emirates ticket, you’l have access to a Qantas lounge and vice versa.

As a reminder, here’s the access policy of the Qantas First Lounge in Singapore:

• First Class passengers departing on Qantas, Emirates or oneworld flights
• Qantas Platinum One and Platinum holders departing on a Qantas, Jetstar or oneworld flight
• Emirates Skywards Platinum holders departing on an Emirates flight
• oneworld Emerald passengers departing on oneworld flights
• Passengers arriving on an international long haul (>5 hours) First Class oneworld flight and connecting to another short haul flight, regardless of what cabin the subsequent flight is in

At the time of writing, award inventory for this flight has not been loaded onto the Emirates website or its partners (e.g Qantas) so I’m not able to tell you how many miles a redemption on this route will cost.

If for some reason you’re swimming in cash, a one-way First Class flight between Singapore and Penang will set you back a cool S$1,077. As the total flying time is just about an hour, I doubt a full meal service can be served so you are effectively paying S$1,077 for the chauffeur service and access to the Qantas First Lounge.

Business Class fares are around S$600 but it definitely isn’t as extravagant as Emirates First. Oh, and although it’s a B777-300ER serving this route, you can forget about trying Emirates’ new First Class. This bird has their old First Class product, which to be fair, is still pretty impressive today. You won’t find any onboard showers either- those are exclusively on the A380s.

Conclusion

This new fifth freedom route between Singapore and Penang is good news for leisure travellers between Singapore and Penang. The low fares that Emirates is offering will put competitive pressure on the incumbent carriers, even if its outbound flight timing isn’t as desirable as other flights that are currently available.