Emirates Finally Unveils Its New Premium Economy Cabin

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Update: The Premium Economy Cabin will debut on the Dubai – London Route from 4 January 2021 (click for more details).

The only things that feel like they have been around longer than the pandemic are the rumors surrounding the new Emirates A380 Premium Economy cabin, but those rumors have finally been put to rest with today’s unveiling by the Middle Eastern carrier.

Emirates took delivery of its first Premium Economy equipped A380 earlier this month but it took until today, 29 December, for the airline to unveil its newest cabin. The A380’s Premium Economy cabin has a total of 56 seats set out in a 2-4-2 layout offering customers a seat pitch of “up to 40-inches”. Each seat is 19.5 inches wide and reclines up to 8″ into a position Emirates describes as “a cradle position”.

The Premium Economy cabin is located at the front of the main deck of the A380 so it’s likely that it will be the seats in the first row that have the 40″ of pitch that Emirates mentions. The remaining seats in the cabin will almost certainly offer the same 38″ of pitch that we see in the Premium Economy cabins of most other airlines.

All the Premium Economy seats come with a footrest (located under the seat directly ahead) as well as a leg rest that’s deployed from under the seat itself.

Each seat also offers a 6-way adjustable headrest…

…as well as a dining table that can double as a cocktail table which deploys from the armrest.

The in-flight entertainment screens are 13.3″ in size…

…and each seat offers convenient charging points including 3-pin power outlets for laptops as well as a USB port for smaller devices.

Emirates has confirmed that its new Premium Economy cabin will be installed on the remaining five Airbus A380 aircraft that it has on order as well as its new Boeing 777X aircraft that it’s not expecting to put into service before 2023. As far as the airline’s existing fleet goes, Emirates has only said that it is considering plans to retrofit the Premium Economy product to its older A380s so no firm decisions have yet been taken.

Tim Clark, the President of Emirates, has said that until his airline has “a viable number of seats” available for sale, the new Premium Economy Class cabin will be offered as a complimentary upgrade from Economy Class to “valued customers” (presumably Emirates Skywards elites).

The new A380 will operate between Dubai and London from 4 January 2021 but with Emirates saying that the aircraft will not be scheduled to operate on only one single route, there’s a good chance that we’ll see the aircraft appear on other routes as soon as there’s a sign that travel is picking up.

To give customers (and AvGeeks) a good idea of what the new A380 Premium Economy cabin offers, Emirates has uploaded this video walkthrough:

Bottom Line

Emirates has finally unveiled its new Premium Economy Class cabin that has been fitted to its newest Airbus A380 aircraft. With seats that are 19.5″ wide, the Emirates A380 Premium Economy product offers at least an inch more lateral room than the Premium Economy seats you’ll find on aircraft operated by American Airlines, British Airways, Lufthansa, and Delta (amongst others), and they match the amount of width offered by the seats in the Premium Economy cabins of carriers like Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines. With (mostly) 38″ of seat pitch, the Emirates Premium Economy seats are in line with almost all other Premium Economy products so the airline will have to rely on its onboard service and soft product to differentiate itself further from the competition.