Dubai-based carrier Emirates recently announced the launch of its full premium economy class, the first for a regional airline, open for sale as of June.
The new cabin class, which offers luxurious seats and more legroom, will be available to Emirates customers travelling on A380 routes to London, Paris, Sydney from 1 August, and Christchurch from December.
“As with everything we do, Emirates Premium Economy will be exceptional in its class, with minute attention given to every aspect of the customer experience. Customers trading up from Economy will be getting excellent value,” said Tim Clark, President of Emirates Airline.
“Since we first introduced our Premium Economy seats in January 2021, the positive response and demand has been tremendous. We currently have six A380s equipped with this cabin class, which limits our initial deployment, but our intention is to offer this experience to many more markets across our network.
“This November, we will begin our retrofit programme to install Premium Economy on 67 A380s and 53 Boeing 777s. At the end of the programme, Emirates will have 126 aircraft fitted out with Premium Economy cabins, as well as our latest interiors across other cabins. It is a major investment to ensure our customers continue to have the best experience in the sky,” he continued.
The premium economy experience includes a dedicated check-in area, 19.5 inches wide seating with six-way adjustable headrests and footrests, welcome drink and meals served on chinaware.
On a four-class Emirates A380, the Premium Economy cabin is located at the front of the main deck with 56 seats laid out in 2-4-2 configuration. On the Emirates Boeing 777, up to 24 Premium Economy seats will be installed in a dedicated cabin section between Business and Economy.
Emirates’ hospitality strategy
Emirates has also launched a new hospitality-based strategy, one of the biggest people, process, and product initiatives ever implemented at the airline, touching frontline customer facing teams and supporting departments.
“Even while managing the immediate challenges of the pandemic during the past two years, Emirates did not hesitate to keep driving forward initiatives to ensure our customers keep “flying better” for the foreseeable future,” said Adel Al Redha, chief operating officer at Emirates.
“Emirates already has a signature service that our customers value and makes us unique. What we’re doing through our new hospitality strategy, is providing our teams with even more bandwidth and skills to build stronger, more personalised, and relevant connections with our customers at every moment of their journey with us. We’ll achieve that by investing in technologies, refining elements of our processes, and empowering our people to be our most effective and real brand ambassadors.
The learning programme for our new hospitality strategy will be rolled out starting from June, and refresher courses in the programme will continue to ensure the consistency of our customer experience,” he continued.
With support from Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), the programme aims to drive consistency across all touchpoints and provide a framework for teams to create positive memories and feelings for Emirates’ customers.
The first batch of Emirates facilitators have already earned their EHL Qualified Learning Facilitator certification after completing a two-week programme between Dubai and EHL’s main campus in Lausanne earlier this year. They will be part of the core team involved in deploying the airline’s hospitality learning experience initiatives starting from June.
The airline is setting up an internal Emirates Hospitality Centre of Excellence to engage and co-ordinate the roll-out of the programme across the teams at Emirates involved in delivering customer experiences – including cabin crew, airport services employees, contact centre teams, catering, inflight products, training, recruitment and sales and marketing.
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