David Eyre 
A6-EEO Airbus A380-861 of Emirates at Perth Airport, Western Australia – 1 November 2022. Landing on runway 21 as flight EK420 from Dubai at 5:09pm. Photo © David Eyre.
Emirates today (1 November 2022) switched back to the Airbus A380 on the EK420 / EK421 Dubai – Perth services, upgrading from the previous Boeing 777-300ER.
Emirates A380-861 A6-EEO landed on runway 21 at 5:09pm as flight EK420 from Dubai at 5:09pm, departing back to Dubai at 10:20pm as EK421.
This marked the first Emirates A380 visit since 24 March 2020, when A6-EOC flew the last daily Emirates service into Perth. The service was temporarily suspended due to COVID-19 travel restrictions.
During April and May 2020, no passenger services were operated by Emirates into Perth.
Some ‘preighter’ (passenger aircraft operating as freighters) services were operated during May – September 2020 by Emirates’ Boeing 777-300ER aircraft.
From 17 June 2020, Emirates resumed passenger services into Perth once per week with Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, with EK420 arriving on Tuesday evenings and departing as EK421 on Wednesday nights – the initial one of these was operated by A6-EQG.
From 1 August 2020 onwards, EK420/EK421 increased to two or three per week, using Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, before eventually resuming daily flights.
A6-ECQ operated the final Boeing 777-300ER service on 31 October 2022 before the switch back to A380s.
