Emirates has just announced plans to invest $2 billion in the passenger experience, most of which will be spent reconfiguring existing aircraft. We can look forward to premium economy being installed on many planes, though unfortunately don’t expect major changes to first & business class.
Continue reading: Emirates Installing Premium Economy On 120 Planes
Share your questions, experiences, and thoughts below.
"better than any other business class she has ever flown" ??
What has she been smoking ? 😀
@Ben, think of the new suite install on a positive way, Atleast they covered 9 of their fleet with it in 5 years time, representing around 4% Of EK fleet, while the LH industry innovative class that earned their fifth star can be seen only in the ppt, representing 0% of the fleet.
Emirates is coasting on reputation and if your friends opinion is reflective of the general public I think a lot of emirates customers care more about brand name than they do substance. If you ask me Emirates is a "luxury leisure" airline rather than an airline that caters to business travelers. It's funny to see Lufthansa's slightly below par product get so hated on while Emirates's obsolete product gets rabidly defended
Look at it this way, if I’m flying from a major city on EK, I’m on a 380.
777s only really go to small places like Brussels.
If I’m in EK J, I get Hennessy XO and some other very nice spirits and often good wines.
I’m not always so exhausted that I need a private suite to sleep in. Especially on a 777 route.
I, too, once got fed up of EKs inferior J, and switched to EY. But then Etihad started reducing benefits on Alitalia (which living in London were very nice flying out of LHR T4 short haul to Italy and Europe), then Etihad did away with the A380s and left T4 LHR (which is the least congested and fastest terminal to navigate at LHR), then they did away with the complementary barber services in their arrival and departure lounges, then they did away with the chauffeur.
Admittedly, I now usually book EK J but fly F by being flexible with my dates and upgrading with miles, but suddenly EK made so much more sense than EY. The seats may be worse, but the drinks were certainly better, and being picked and dropped to the airport every step of the way really helps.
BA is great if all you want to do is sleep, the club Suite is certainly more comfortable, but the service is non existent and the F&B is appalling.
So yeah, if you’re exhausted and are short of time, by all means take BA and sleep, however, if you have time for pleasure and don’t just want to sleep, enjoy EK and the bar and if you’re flexible, upgrade to F.
I mean, given the weakness of the J product on the 777's why would anyone NOT just get a cheaper Premium economy seat instead? This will end up gutting their Business Class unless it's upgraded as it offers nothing compelling to differentiate. Especially so on the shorter European routes.
With their obsolete business class product (middle seat, lol), this truly makes them a mediocre leisure airline but simultaneously the world's best marketing company!
They do an awesome job making people believe they somehow are 'premium', when only a handful of planes have truly world class first cabins and 95% have outdated premium products and service.
It will also mainly eat into their premium sales, since there hardly is differentiation now. Biz already doesn't have dine on demand etc., so why would you opt for that now?
"...[A] non-avgeek friend...", so not Tiffany. And also, if memory serves, her favorite F product was/is Cathay Pacific.
I like how the attitude of avgeeks here about Emirates having one bad cabin in their entire fleet (777 J) therefore the whole airline is lazy and bad
@ Jan -- I hear you, but I also think you're understating the problem here. Emirates isn't like other airlines that have 15 different types of planes in their fleet. Roughly half of Emirates' fleet consists of planes with a 2-3-2 configuration in business class. That's a lot of planes.
The thing I have noticed with Emirates premium economy is you cannot combine this with business class, unless I am missing something. I would like to fly London to Singapore, I cannot afford the full business class amount as this is over £4k pounds, so i wanted to look at London to Dubai in PE, then Dubai to Sin in Business, but the computer says no. If you book a flight like this with PE as the first leg, the next leg has to be in economy, you cannot choose business. I guess this is to protect business class sales, but for me is frustrating as I would Like the chance to at least see the cost ?
I don't know that Emirates reputation is going to carry it through outdated design. The best business class that I have ever flown is Qatar and it is still my #1 choice today. I was crushed recently, when I went to book I business class, and there were no more seat available in business class. I decided to fly at a later time. If Emirates wants to compete with airlines like Qatar, it needs to step up.