At the Dubai Airshow 2021, Emirates announced that they will be retrofiting 105 of their modern wide-body aircraft with their Premium Economy product; as well as considering a new 1-2-1 configured Business Class on their B777 fleet.
The 18-month retrofit programme, scheduled to begin at the end of 2022, will be entirely conducted at Emirates’ state-of-the-art Engineering Centre in Dubai. It will see 52 Emirates A380s and 53 Boeing 777s fitted with a new cabin class – the airline’s highly lauded Premium Economy.
The airline is also considering installing a brand new Business Class product on their Boeing 777 aircraft, with customised seats in a 1-2-1 layout. No further details were given at the point of writing.
Sir Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline, said: “Emirates is investing in this retrofit programme to ensure that we continue to serve our customers’ needs and provide the best experiences in the sky. Since we introduced our Premium Economy seats a year back, we’ve received a hugely positive response. Customers have been amazed by the quality and comfort. We are also considering a brand new Business Class product. More details will be revealed in due course.”
At the end of the retrofit programme, Emirates will have a total of 111 Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 aircraft offering Premium Economy seats.
On the Emirates Boeing 777, 5 rows of Economy class seats, located just behind Business Class, will be removed to allow for the installation of 24 Premium Economy seats laid out in 2-4-2 configuration.
On the Emirates A380, 56 Premium Economy seats will be installed at the front of the main deck and will also be in 2-4-2 configuration.
By end of December 2021, Emirates’ A380s with Premium Economy will be operating on the airline’s flights to Frankfurt, London Heathrow, New York JFK and Paris.
It’s about time. For as simple a long haul fleet as EK has (only 388 and 77W), there are significant inconsistencies in the hard product both in F and J. The hard product in F on the 77W is vastly superior to the 388 and the hard product in J on the 388 is vastly superior to the 77W. Even in Y, if you put the same seat in the 77W that is used on the 388, you could only get nine across on the 77W. (17in on 77W, 18in on 388).
Adding a Premium Y solves a huge hole in the hard product on these aircraft that perform mostly long haul to ultra long haul flights and if EK puts the same seat on the 77W as on the 388, then the product would be at parity. It would not, however be completely competitive. EK will have to refit its J class to a Q suite type hard product to stay competitive and they need to refit the 388s with the 77W First product.
Why?
EK’s F class on the 77W is top of market. 388 is not. EK J class is not competitive at all against QR and other carriers who are putting seats with privacy doors in J class. The W class product will be top of class; nobody is close and since their won’t be any refit of Y class, the likelihood of W class filling are quite high. The most critical fix is on the 77W, on which the hard product is completely uncompetitive anywhere (nobody except BA has a high density J class and that will be fixed within 24 months with their new J class suite). The unfortunate thing for EK is that they are late to the party. This should have been done during the down time of the pandemic. All the US carriers took the down time to get more done on their fleets and ALL of them have a superior J class hard product than EK and a W class on most of their long haul fleets.
If they are going to stay competitive, they will need to leap frog the pack in F and J. A serious fleet wide upgrade of their J product in addition to W class will get the job done. Let’s see what they do.