Emirates has pushed back plans to reinstate the A380 aircraft on its Birmingham-Dubai route.

The airline had planned to operate the one of its two daily services out of Birmingham on the A380 from 1 July , after taking it out of service at the beginning of the pandemic, but will now continue operating both services on smaller Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.

Birmingham is one of eight routes on which Emirates will not now operate the A380 this year.  The others are Beijing, Copenhagen, Hong Kong, Nice, Prague, Shanghai and Tokyo.

Aviation news service Simple Flying said: “Shifting these three European routes to B777-300ERs as the recovery continues removes about 42% of seats for sale per departure or around 260 seats. It also means business class reduces by over a quarter.”

Simple Flying added Emirates is also making other changes to its A380 network, mainly involving frequency cuts, postponements, and delays to their return.

An Emirates spokesperson told Travel Gossip: “Emirates’ planned A380 services to a few cities across our network has been deferred after a routine review of our operational requirements.

“Emirates is still committed on rebuilding our global network and services and we will announce the deployment of our A380 aircraft on specific routes at the appropriate time.”