Dubai flights: Emirates to double premium economy seats to 2 million by 2025-end

Dubai’s flagship carrier Emirates plans to double to 2 million by the end of 2025, a senior official said on Thursday.

“Just to give you a flavour of the premium economy capacity, we deployed around 1 million seats and this number will increase to 2 million by the end of the 2025 calendar year. So we will be sitting in a leading position in terms of the premium economy capacity,” said Adnan Kazim, deputy president and chief commercial officer, Emirates.

He said the airline is encouraged to add more premium economy seats due to strong demand.

“To start with, the product was well-received by the passengers. They liked the privacy, and we see more and more passengers moving from economy to the premium economy. Rather than cannibalising the business, premium economy is catering to the need of the corporate business,” Kazim told reporters after the press conference held to announce details of Arabian Travel Market 2025 next week.

Further, he elaborated that Emirates will receive about 12 to 15 Airbus A350 by the end of summer.

“This aircraft comes with a capacity of 312 seats and with three classes – Economy, Premium Economy and Business. It gives flexibility in terms of the deployment and can fly to many regional secondary markets,” said the Emirates CCO. .

Emirates has already received four Airbus A350s.

In phase two after the summer, he said the A350 be deployed on the ultra-long-haul routes and routes will be announced soon.

He added that aircraft for long-haul routes will have three classes but slightly different configurations.

“The aircraft could reach anywhere from the United States to Australia,” Kazim said after the Arabian Travel Market (ATM) press conference held in Dubai on Thursday.

The world’s largest carrier in terms of international passengers has already announced some of the destinations for A350 and also operating those routes including Edinburgh, Bahrain,  Kuwait, and India (Ahmedabad and Mumbai).

“We're expanding to places like Tunisia, for example… Many other kinds of regional places can adapt to the capacity of the A350.”