Emirates Unveils the First Completed Aircraft in Its Massive Retrofitting Project

Emirates took on a highly ambitious project last year. It planned to upgrade the interior cabins of no less than 120 aircraft, and do so exclusively at its own facilities, with its in-house engineers. It’s no wonder this is claiming to be the largest-known retrofit project in commercial aviation.

What is this refreshment supposed to include? First of all, the refurbishment of First Class suites, the upgrade of Business Class suites, and the installation of brand-new Premium Economy seats (which were first introduced by the airline in 2020). The numbers are indeed impressive – by the end of the project, the Emirates engineers will have installed almost 4,000 new seats, and upgraded more than 5,000 seats.

And that’s not all. Each cabin will feature better stairs, carpets, and a new overall style. This includes an elegant neutral-tone color palette, sophisticated hand-stenciled panels in the First Class showers, and the brand’s iconic ghaf-tree motif (a drought-tolerant tree that is considered the symbol of tolerance in the United Arab Emirates).

This is exactly what you notice in the freshly-retrofitted A6-EVM, the first A380 that was completed as part of this massive project. It’s now ready to enter service, while engineers move on to the next aircraft. In fact, they will be working on two of them at the same time, with another Super Jumbo starting the retrofitting process every eight days. This way, the airline wants to maintain an ambitious 16-day turnaround per aircraft.

As you can imagine, this complex endeavor didn’t kick off without preparation. Things began with trials on an A380, in the summer of 2022. This meant going through the same steps as for an actual retrofit, but documenting every step, testing and timing them.

Also, the operator’s facilities in Dubai got new workshops that were specifically built for this project. This is where the Business and Economy Class seats would be repainted and reupholstered. As for the First Class suites, there are disassembled and then sent to a different company to be refurbished.

It seems that airliner cabin retrofitting became a trend in the industry after the pandemic. With most of their fleet on the ground for such a long time, and with financial factors putting a damper on new purchases, airlines began to focus more on retrofitting their current airplanes. On the other hand, the addition of Premium Economy seats is another important trend, due to the fact that leisure travel continues to surpass demand for business flights.

Emirates’ new project seems to be successfully incorporating both of these trends. Estimated to be worth $2 billion, it’s set to be completed by April 2025.