On January 4, 2020, Emirates deploys its latest A380 featuring the new signature Premium Economy Cabin to London Heathrow.
The debut flight, number EK3, is scheduled to depart from Dubai International Airport (DXB) at 2:30pm and land in London Heathrow Airport (LHR) at 6:20pm local time. The return flight departs LHR at 8:20pm and arrives in DXB 7:20am on January 5, 2020.
On December 28, 2020, after multiple postponements, Emirates took delivery of its first Airbus A380 wide-body featuring a new signature Premium Economy Cabin for ultra-long-haul operations. The new Premium Economy Cabin has 56 seats, each with 40 inches of pitch and a width of 19.5 inches. Emirates is considering plans to retrofit its existing A380 fleet, according to the airlines website.
For now, the seats in the refurbished Premium Economy are not for sale, they will be reserved as upgrades for the “valued customers on a discretionary basis”, according to the Emirates press release.
“Until we have a viable number of seats in our inventory to bring to market, we plan to offer the Emirates Premium Economy experience as a complimentary upgrade to valued customers. We’ll also deploy our newest A380 aircraft on various routes so that our customers can experience our latest offering in all classes,” said Emirates President Sir Tim Clark in an interview earlier in December 2020.
In addition, the rest of the cabins were also updated. The Economy and Business cabins feature new seat design and refreshed colors. Meanwhile, the First Class has 14 slightly more spacious suites with a refreshed design of the onboard bathroom.
Emirates currently operates five daily flights from Dubai to London Heathrow, four of which are operated with an Airbus A380. There are also ten flights a week to Manchester and daily flights to both Birmingham and Glasgow.
In 2020, Emirates received three superjumbos and its remaining order of five A380s will be delivered over 2021 and 2022.