Yesterday saw the very first of no less than 120 retrofitted aircraft take off from Dubai to London Heathrow. As part of a US$2billion upgrade program, EK003 heralds the start of a huge investment from Emirates to bring all of their A380s back to the skies, and – eventually – featuring the latest cabin products too.
The biggest shift to Emirates’ A380s can be found at the front of the lower deck where a new cabin of 56 premium economy seats will allow the carrier to operate this lucrative cabin class across more routes than just London, Paris and Sydney.
The fully refreshed A380 features Emirates’ latest products and interiors across all cabins which thankfully include a less gaudy colour palette evident in the carpeting and wall panels.
On the upper deck, First and Business Class seats sport Emirates’ latest cream-coloured leather upholstery and lighter-toned wood finishing, similar to the airline’s ‘game changer’ product. Emirates’ signature ghaf tree motif also features prominently throughout the interiors, including hand-stencilled panels in the First Class Shower Spa.
The next Emirates A380 aircraft lined up for its make-over is A6-EUW, and work is expected to be completed by the end of this month. However, to complete the 67 A380s, things will have to speed up and it’s planned that engineers will start to work simultaneously on 2 aircraft at a time. This means that one aircraft in the fleet will be withdrawn from service every eight days and transferred to Emirates Engineering facilities.
By 2024, all 67 A380s assigned for refurbishment will have returned to service. But it’s not just the A380’s. Attention will then turn to Emirates 777 fleet which is more in need of some TLC. Work will commence on its 53 Boeing 777s earmarked for this project. The airline expects to complete the entire program in 2025.
Overall, this project for the carrier will see nearly 4,000 brand new Premium Economy seats installed, 728 First Class suites refurbished and over 5,000 Business Class seats upgraded to a new style and design.
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As I do every year, I ask on your kind support to keep things going. If you are able to donate – whatever amount – it all gets funnelled back in to the site, to keep the site full of content. And I thank you personally for your kind support.
TheDesignAir 