Emirates has appointed Orhan Abbas to head up its commercial operations for the Americas, as the airline continues to grow its presence across the continent.

Orhan Abbas took up his role as Senior Vice President, Commercial Operations, The Americas last month, having previously been Vice President for India and Nepal, where he oversaw a period of sustained expansion which saw the airline more than double the number of services to the sub-continent in just four years. He has worked for Emirates since 1998, having also held senior commercial positions in Tanzania, South Africa and the Middle East.

“The Americas is a strategically important market for Emirates, a fact underpinned by our recent period of significant growth,” said Mr Abbas. “I look forward to the challenge of consolidating this expansion whilst continuing to seek new ways of developing our service offering across the continent.”

Having started services to the Americas in 2004 with a daily flight to New York JFK, Emirates now flies to seven North American gateways – Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Toronto. A new service to Washington, DC will launch on September 12th.

From January 1 2013, Emirates will start operating its flagship double-decker A380 aircraft twice a day to JFK – becoming the first carrier to offer double daily A380 service from New York City and increasing capacity by almost 1,000 additional seats in both directions every week.

Emirates has also expanded its footprint within South America in 2012, launching a new linked service to Rio-de-Janeiro and Buenos Aires in January.  The airline also flies daily to Sao Paulo.

Winner of over 500 international awards, Emirates’ unique service offering includes complimentary chauffeur-driven airport transfers for premium customers and an inflight entertainment system featuring over 1,400 channels of new release Hollywood movies, TV, music and games.