Emirates Boss Admits Airline is Being Left Behind By Installing Business Class Seats Without Sliding Privacy Doors
- Sir Tim Clark, the president of Emirates admits that the airline has been "slipping" and needs to keep up with rivals who are installing sliding privacy doors on Business Class seats.
The long-serving boss of Dubai-based mega airline Emirates has admitted for the first time that the carrier, synonymous with over-the-top luxury, is effectively being left behind by rivals rushing to roll out Business Class seats with sliding privacy doors.
Speaking to the Australian travel magazine Executive Traveller, Emirates’ president, Sir Tim Clark, said that it would eventually get to the point where premium passengers will demand privacy doors in Business Class as a necessity.
“So you see these things [privacy doors] coming in, and if you haven’t got them, then people are going to say to you, well, you really have to have them,” Sir Tim said of what some in the industry initially viewed as a fad. “And the people, the business community, the premium cabin community love them.”
Sir Tim points out that Emirates was once a global innovator in sliding privacy doors, becoming the first carrier to install enclosed suites in its First Class as far back as the 1990s.
But despite an ever-growing number of airlines installing privacy doors in Business Class, Emirates has taken a far more conservative approach to its largest premium cabin in recent years. An approach that Sir Tim now admits has let down passengers.
“I see all around in the business today, just starting to come through with doors on business suites… but we were slipping. So the damage it does to us is a brand effect,” Sir Tim accepts.
A massive refit program for its workhorse Boeing 777-300 is seeing an updated version of its open Airbus A380 Business Class seats installed, while the same style of seats are also being fitted on brand new Airbus A350 aircraft.
The refit program will replace slightly angled Business Class seats in a 2-3-2 configuration – a layout that Sir Tim says “long since should have been abandoned – but these seats don’t have privacy doors.
Sir Tim suggests that Emirates was also going to install the same Business Class seats, sans privacy door, on its much-delayed fleet of Boeing 777X, although the drawn-out certification process means that Emirates could take another look at whether it needed to up its game to keep up with competitors.
While Sir Tim makes no bones that he isn’t happy with the additional cost involved in completely reconfiguring the 777X, he told Executive Traveller: “We’re having another look at it again.”
“We are fixed on the product, have been for some time, in the belief that we were going to have it ready in October of this year for flying. Clearly, that’s not the case.”
“So if we have to stop everything and then introduce new designs of products, we will have to be able to do that and that’s the price they will have to pay for the issues that they’ve created for us, like seven-year delays,” Sir Tim complained.
Emirates was meant to start taking delivery of the next generation 777X in 2019 but the earliest delivery won’t now happen towards the end of this year at the very earliest.
In that time, passenger experience expectations have changed massively, with new seats, inflight entertainment, and Wi-Fi all available. Emirates’ initial plans for the 777X have been “ripped up” at a cost of €30 million, and the airline has had to go back to the drawing board to ensure it meets passenger expectations.
One of the advantages of Emirates opting for a similar Business Class seat across its fleet was that it would offer a consistent passenger experience, especially for the many customers who connect through the airline’s Dubai hub on multiple flights within the same booking.
It now appears that the Boeing 777X will offer a different and potentially elevated experience.
Emirates has somehow created a brand with a market lagging product, and a market leading reputation that is mostly prevalent among non-flyers and those that fly Economy. Emirates is the Lufthansa of the Middle East.
RE: “Emirates was meant to start taking delivery of the next generation 777X in 1999 but the earliest delivery won’t now happen towards the end of this year at the very earliest.”
Delivery of next generation 777X in 1999?
As a point of reference, the 777-300ER “classic” began revenue service in 2004.
No, sorry it reads 2019 not 1999.
Howard was right but we corrected the ‘deliberate’ error!
That’s one of the reasons as a Platinum member with Emirates for 3 yrs, I changed to Qatar where Business class has more privacy . I have now been enjoying Qatar Platinum benefits that if I fly Business, i have access to First class lounge automatically and there are 12 private real rooms available first come first serve basis and a jacuzzi ahead of time.
Other reason is that Emirates prices have jumped crazily
about 30-40% for Business and First which now has kicked away the low end travelers who normally fly Business thus making Qatar the best Second option in the Global aviation scene.
I reckon QR now offers more than EK.
1999? What airplane are you talking about? Not the 777X!
What is (or was) more damaging to Emirates is the old business class seats on the 777. To not have a lie flat seat was worse than BA’s face to face seat. I flew to HKG several years ago with Emirates, and only 1 of the 4 flights had lie flat seats, as it was an A380. Had I known this beforehand, there was no way I would have gone Emirates, and is the reason why I still don’t to this day.