In passenger experience news, there’s some excellent news as Emirates plans to expand its nose-to-refit programme.
The original plan called for 120 aircraft – 67 A380s and 53 777s to undergo full refurbishment. This is now expanded to an additional 43 A380s and 28 Boeing 777 aircraft
This brings the retrofit programme to 191 aircraft.
With the Boeing 777 fleet being the backbone of the Emirates experience and the A380 operating as its flagship – combined with further delays it seems that refit is the only way to go.
Emirates has retrofitted 22 A380 aircraft so far, and in July of this year, the first Boeing 777 will undergo an interior refresh. Each Boeing 777 aircraft will take approximately two weeks to refurbish before entering service. Plans include the refurbishment of the First-Class cabin, all new Business Class seats making a debut on the aircraft in an updated 1-2-1 seating configuration, in addition to 24 of the latest Premium Economy seats.
Along with the addition of the Premium Economy cabin, the Emirates Boeing 777 will be configured with 332 seats in four classes, featuring eight First Class suites, 40 Business Class seats, and 260 Economy Class seats. To make room for the new Premium Economy cabin, 50 Economy seats will be removed, and replaced with 24 new seats.
In Quotes
Sir Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline said:
“We’re topping up our multi-billion dollar investment in the retrofit programme to introduce cutting-edge cabin products on more of our A380s and Boeing 777s, demonstrating a clear commitment to elevating the customer experience with a best-in-class suite of products across every cabin. The addition of more aircraft fitted with our newest generation seats, updated cabin finishings and a contemporary colour palette also marks a significant step in ensuring more customers can consistently experience our premium products across both aircraft types.”
Development and progress
Refurbishment work for the Emirates fleet is completely being managed and executed in-house at the airline’s Engineering Centre, with over 250 project personnel currently working round the clock, supported by 31 major partners and suppliers who have set up workshops both in the facility and offsite to deliver the refreshed cabins.
Once the last aircraft rolls out of the retrofit programme and the project is fully complete, the airline will have installed 8,104 next-generation Premium Economy seats, 1,894 refreshed First Class suites, 11,182 upgraded Business Class seats and 21,814 Economy Class seats.
Refurbished A380 aircraft fitted with Premium Economy operate flights to New York JFK, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, London Heathrow, Sydney, Auckland, Christchurch, Melbourne, Singapore, Mumbai, Bangalore, Sao Paulo and Dubai. The airline will be boosting services with the new cabin to Osaka in early June.
As well as those, the airline will serve 42 cities with Premium Economy by February 2025 with the A350 entering its fleet in September of this year, in addition to the newly refurbished Boeing 777s also slated to begin serving more cities
Supply chains matter. As do delays
With the supply chain still tight, along with delays in some wide-body aircraft programmes (eg, the Boeing 777X), it seems Emirates is going to extend the life of more of its aircraft to bring a more uniform experience across the fleet, whilst expanding its cabin offerings further with Premium Economy rolling out further than initially planned.
Emirates is taking this opportunity to examine the business as well as see what aircraft are going to be kept in the fleet longer.
Clearly, with demand increasing, the airline is going to sweat the assets more, while deploying a new product to extend the passenger life to them.
Something to keep an eye out for as the refurbishment programme kicks into a higher gear, once the 777 refreshes start.
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