Emirates reconfigures some planes to meet demand to fly premium

The post-pandemic travel rush has seen leisure passengers snap up expensive seats in the front of the cabin, cushioning a shortfall in corporate travel. As Emirates overhauls its aircraft interiors, the carrier is seizing on that trend by scaling back the economy section on some planes.

The airline said this week that the makeover of its Boeing Co. widebody aircraft will feature a larger premium-economy cabin with 24 seats, doing away with standard 50 economy seats in order to make room for the more exclusive section. Speaking in an interview in Dubai, Emirates Chief Commercial Officer Adnan Kazim said the pattern of leisure passengers upgrading has firmly taken hold, prompting the revised layout.

“The demand that we’re seeing on premium is even stronger compared to economy,” Kazim said. “People are now used to using premium, not only for business, which is a new pattern coming in.”

Emirates typically offers three- and four-class layouts on its fleet, which predominantly consists of the Airbus SE A380 and the Boeing 777 jets. The cabin upgrades seek to extend the lifespan of those models, given Airbus has stopped making the giant double-decker and as Boeing remains years behind introducing the new 777X. 

While demand in recent years has been generally solid, Emirates has adjusted capacity into China by downgrading from the larger A380 super-jumbos to the smaller 777, Kazim said. That’s because policies on travel within China and the conflict in the Middle East weighed on travel from the Asian nation toward the end of last year, he said,

More recently, demand to and from China has made a comeback, and the carrier is considering returning to higher capacity on those routes, Kazim said.