Emirates Ends Melbourne-Singapore Service in March 2025

Emirates has confirmed that its fifth-freedom flight between Melbourne and Singapore will end on 30 March 2025. From this date, Emirates will instead replace the tag flight with a third daily non-stop Melbourne-Dubai service.

Emirates has been operating this route as EK404 and EK405 since before the pandemic. It was paused in March 2020 due to COVID-19, but came back in March 2023.

It’s been a popular route for redeeming Qantas Frequent Flyer points due to the good amount of Business and First Class reward availability offered. The daytime flight from Singapore to Melbourne has been especially popular, as Emirates’ usual carrier charges don’t apply when booking in that direction. Indeed, I used my own Qantas points last year to fly from Singapore to Melbourne in Emirates First Class.

Emirates had applied to the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) to terminate the route several months ago. It needed to get permission from Singapore’s competition regulator because Emirates and Qantas had committed to operating minimum levels of capacity on the Singapore-Melbourne route as a condition of being allowed to coordinate on price and schedule.

The airline has now received permission to end the service and has today announced 30 March 2025 as the date. This coincides with the changeover between the IATA northern winter and summer scheduling periods.

Qantas will continue to operate two daily Melbourne-Singapore flights after Emirates withdraws from the route. From 30 March 2025, Qantas will increase its capacity slightly by operating Airbus A330-300s, which have more Economy seats, instead of A330-200s. Emirates will continue to codeshare on the Qantas flights.

This leaves Sydney-Christchurch as Emirates’ last fifth freedom route that touches Australia. A fifth-freedom route is a tag flight that an airline operates to a third country as an extension of another international flight. (In the case of Sydney-Christchurch, this flight continues to Christchurch from Sydney after arriving from Dubai.)

Emirates’ new non-stop Melbourne-Dubai service

Replacing the one-stop service via Singapore, Emirates will launch a third daily non-stop flight from Melbourne to Dubai on 30 March 2025. It will use a refurbished four-class Boeing 777-300ER, featuring First Class, Economy and Emirates’ refurbished Business Class.

This aircraft also features Emirates Premium Economy.

This is the schedule of the new non-stop service, as of April 2025:

• EK405 Melbourne 22:55 – Dubai 07:00 (next day)
• EK404 Dubai 21:15 – Melbourne 16:40 (next day)

Matt Graham

The editor of Australian Frequent Flyer, Matt's passion for travel has taken him to over 90 countries… with the help of frequent flyer points, of course!
Matt's favourite destinations (so far) are Germany, Brazil & Kazakhstan. His interests include aviation, economics & foreign languages, and he has a soft spot for good food and red wine.

You can connect with Matt by posting on the Australian Frequent Flyer community forum and tagging @AFF Editor.