Middle Eastern carrier Emirates is to restore Airbus A380 operations to Houston, nearly two years after opting to cut back to Boeing 777-300ERs on the route.

The Dubai-based airline says it will return the A380, configured with 516 seats, to the Houston route from 1 June.

It says this follows its decision to open a new nonstop link to Newark and reinstate daily services to Orlando and Fort Lauderdale.

Emirates originally deployed the double-deck A380 on its Houston link towards the end of 2014 but says a "fleet optimisation" decision in July 2016 resulted in the switch to 777s.

The airline says the resumption of A380 operations is "in line with commercial demand" and that it "remains committed" to serving the US city.

Emirates will use the aircraft on its daily EK211 flight.

Source: Cirium Dashboard