Emirates offer Economy Class customers to purchase empty adjoining seats

Emirates is seeking to monetise empty seats further, by offering the ability to purchase up to three empty adjoining seats on their flight.

I need a little room to find myself… I need a little space to work it out… I need a little room all alone…  Image, Emirates. Words, The Beautiful South – A Little Time

These seats will be offered to all Economy Class customers holding a confirmed booking. Customers will not be able to pre-book empty seats, as these are subject to availability.

Empty seats will only be offered for purchase at the airport check-in counter before flight departure, and costs range from AED 200 to AED 600 (US$55 to US$ 65) per empty seat, plus applicable taxes depending on the flight sector.

The move has been made at the request of customers who want extra privacy and space while still flying in Economy Class.

This includes couples who wish to have the entire row to themselves (maximum of three seats in the same row), parents travelling with in-lap infants, or those who simply want the added assurance of more space while travelling during pandemic times.

Additional seating options

Emirates has been offering a variety of different options for its economy class passengers, including:

• Extra legroom seats: exit row seats offering additional space but subject to safety requirements;
• Twin seats: seats in a row of two at the back of Emirates’ Boeing 777 aircraft, and on the upper deck of Emirates’ 2-class Airbus A380 aircraft;
• Preferred seats: seats in the first section of the cabin and on the upper deck of a two-class A380;
• Regular seats: all other Economy seats.

These options are available through Emirates.com, Emirates contact centres, at airport check-in, onboard, and through travel agent partners. These offerings may be free or charged- depending on your Emirates Skywards membership tier, fare type, time to departure, and other special needs.

Emirates has documented some of the cases here.

Also, Emirates are offering discounts on excess baggage rates.  These discounts range from 35% up to 60% off normal rates depending on the sector and must be pre-booked and pre-paid up to 4 hours before flight departure via emirates.com, through contact centres or at an Emirates sales office

You can visit this page to find out how much that extra luggage is going to cost you.

Adjusting the space options 

With passengers wanting to travel, some might see having more space as a valid option, so they can either spread out or have a sense of security there is no one adjacent to them when they’re flying (and risk possible exposure from that person).

For those who want that space (which does look space dependent), this could be a good option. The costs of the extra seat offering seem fair at first… until you start adding taxes. 

At that point, you’ll have to either judge for yourself if you’re prepared to pay for that extra space, or if you want to gamble with having the middle seat free…

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