Emirates is currently undergoing an aggressive retrofit project for the interiors of its aircraft, to introduce a new product standard, and also to roll out premium economy. Along those lines, the airline has revealed plans to reconfigure the highest capacity aircraft flown by any airline. With this, we’ll no longer see any commercial aircraft with over 600 seats.
With these changes, the business class cabin will be increased in size to 76 seats, the same number of business class seats you’ll find on all of Emirates’ A380s with first class. So that means the entire Emirates A380 fleet will have 76 business class seats, all located in the middle and back of the upper deck.
Then premium economy will be in the space of where the first class cabin typically is, meaning that there will be 56 premium economy seats in lieu of 14 first class seats. That means the upper deck will be entirely dedicated to premium seating throughout the Emirates A380 fleet. Then the lower deck will have 437 economy seats, so there’s no change there.
We have seen an increase in premium travel demand globally over the years, so it’s logical that after many years in service, the airline would rethink the layout of these planes. And if you’re going to introduce premium economy on the upper deck, then you might as well also streamline things, in terms of having the upper deck entirely dedicated to business class and premium economy.
Emirates’ premium economy is great in general, but should be especially nice on these A380s, given the location at the front of the upper deck, plus the 2-3-2 layout. On the four-cabin A380s, premium economy is at the front of the lower deck, and is in a 2-4-2 layout.
Bottom line
Emirates plans to reconfigure the cabins of its high density Airbus A380s, which currently feature 615 seats. These planes will see business class capacity increase by 18 seats, the introduction of a new 56-seat premium economy cabin, and economy capacity reduced by 120 seats.
A great solo travel tip spotted this week on One Mile at a Time.
