Emirates debuts the world's most passenger-packed Airbus A380
By David Flynn, November 8 2015
Emirates will this week showcase its latest Airbus A380, designed to pack in some 615 passengers from tip to tail.
It's the most bums on seats of any airline flying the double-decker jet – around 100 more than the A380s of Air France, Qatar Airways and some of Emirates' other superjumbos, which average around 516 travellers.
Emirates magicked up the extra space by dropping its luxe first class suites from the nose of the A380.
The 14 private cabins, their two inflight showers and some of the kitchen area set aside for first class and business class passengers made way for 120 economy seats.
Review: Emirates Airbus A380 first class 'shower spa'
Business class also took a hit, going from 76 seats down to 58 – although the airline's iconic cocktail bar escaped the scythe and can still be found at the rear of the upper deck.
Review: Emirates Airbus A380 inflight cocktail bar and lounge
The lower deck remains given over to economy, with 437 seats in all.
By comparison, Qantas' A380s carry 484 passengers in first class, business, premium economy and economy class.
Emirates says its two-class A380s are intended for routes where there's insufficient demand for the high-priced realms of first class, and where even a full business class cabin can be hard to achieve.
The new A380s will debut on Dubai-Copenhagen and Dubai-Bangkok flights from flights from December 1, with Dubai-Kuala Lumpur to follow in January.
The Gulf colossus has no intention to drop first class from the bulk of its A380 fleet, however, and is working on a new extra-luxe version of the suites which an Emirates executive says will be "more like a private railway cabin."
Tim Clark, President and CEO of Emirates, has previously said the "our new bedroom concept will take [privacy] to the next level.”
"We’re talking fully enclosed rooms, with all the touches and amenities that you’d expect in hotel or a private bedroom on a luxury yacht, room service and so on."
Read more: New Emirates first class private bedroom for Airbus A380, Boeing 777
But the superjumbo's supersqueeze won't stop there, with Airbus now offering airlines a tight-fitting '11 across' seating option.
Dubbed 'budget economy', the seats will be less than 17 inches wide, compared to the 17.5 inches of a Qantas Airbus A380 economy seat by way of example.
And you can forget about the cheap seats being grouped in a 3-4-3 layout: Airbus has squeezed an extra seat into the centre row to create a 3-5-3 configuration.
Here's the official Airbus PR pic, showing the middle seat which nobody will want to be stuck in.
Airbus' A380 budget economy seating
Airbus
Airbus
Read more: Airbus reveals A380 'Budget Economy' seating, 11-across squeeze
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David Flynn is the Editor-in-Chief of Executive Traveller and a bit of a travel tragic with a weakness for good coffee, shopping and lychee martinis.
21 Apr 2012
Total posts 3012
3-5-3.... There is a word for that: Insanity.
QFF
12 Apr 2013
Total posts 1518
Herd wanna save a dollar. They simply deliver.
10 Aug 2015
Total posts 113
Better than steerage on the Titanic I guess.
09 Nov 2015
Total posts 1
At least the pax in steerage got to die.
26 Jun 2015
Total posts 6
Too soon
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
29 Nov 2013
Total posts 475
Too soon?
That my friend is comment of the day!
Qantas
13 Jun 2015
Total posts 141
I need to refrain myself asap!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Sep 2011
Total posts 321
Ghost of the future: if EK do it, so will others. Yield is everything.
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
19 Feb 2014
Total posts 444
11 across. No thanks. Yet the naive general public will still think Emirates are amazing.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
29 Nov 2013
Total posts 475
Totally agree Chris...
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
24 Aug 2011
Total posts 785
Haven't seen 5 across since the L-1011. Should have died with it as well.
20 May 2015
Total posts 581
If Emirates go 11-abreast, I'm tempted to suspect they'll introduce an "Economy Plus" option (say, the front cabin of the lower deck going 3-3-3, same service but bigger seats and maybe a small snack bar) in order to compensate. They'd also be the first of the Gulf carriers to introduce an intermediate class between Economy and Business.
But really... please Emirates, 10-abreast is more than enough!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
30 Dec 2012
Total posts 66
Whilst 11 abreast is not good - EK may be the first to offer 3-5-3, I remember MH on their old 777's with 2-5-2 configuration...
So a 5-middle seat has been done - as recent at 2010/2011 too...
Qantas
13 Jun 2015
Total posts 141
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
28 Dec 2011
Total posts 95
Are they CRAZY, 11 abreast on 17" wide seats. Creedy has a new name it's Emirates.
As in "His a bit Emirates".
09 Nov 2015
Total posts 4
Has anyone here actually read the article? EK have not gone 11 abreast nor have they displayed any desire to. The 3-5-3 is an Airbus concept that they will offer to airlines. As yet, no one has picked it up.
The 2 class A380 is still 3-4-3.
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
10 Nov 2015
Total posts 9
To be fair, it was pretty disingenuous (to put it more-than-politely) of the author to hamfist in another unrelated article about Airbus' 'budget economy' concept under the headline 'Emirates debuts the world's most passenger-packed Airbus A380'.
09 Sep 2014
Total posts 54
What happens to the F bathrooms?
It states in the article that the bar/lounge, will still remain in the same place, so are they going to put economy seats upfront in the old F class cabin? - therefore giving them the large and spacious bathrooms?
Singapore Airlines - KrisFlyer
14 Jan 2014
Total posts 341
David, I believe Airbus said it would still offer an 18in seat width on the 11 abreast A380 seating. This would be achieved through the special optimisation of the side panels.
I found this hard to believe at the time, but are we 100% sure Airbus would go sub 17in seat width, given their attack ads re the 9 abreast B787 and 10 abreast B77W??
09 Nov 2015
Total posts 4
Looking at the photos from the 18in window seats in the 11 abreast mockup, I'm thinking 17in would be the better option.
https://www.executivetraveller.com/squeeze-alert-airbus-touts-new-budget-economy-airplane-seating
Virgin Australia - Velocity Rewards
19 Feb 2014
Total posts 444
So they serve coffee in a slim line mug to make the seat look bigger :)
09 Jul 2014
Total posts 31
Nope. Noooo. No. Nope.
21 Mar 2014
Total posts 8
Budget Economy huh? - That sounds as much fun as a cheese grater to the sausage factory!
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
10 Oct 2013
Total posts 113
does anyone know yet how they will disembark business when its behind economy on the upper deck? - or embark separately? ie maintain their special service?
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
10 Nov 2015
Total posts 9
This is just a guess, but I would assume the walkway would connect to the jet midway, where economy and business split, and let business off first.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
10 Oct 2013
Total posts 113
the front door is before business which is after some rows of economy - so will have to walk through economy to get to business - which isnt that bad of course on boarding - its more getting off which used to be nice and special - just wondering how they will do that?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
10 Nov 2015
Total posts 8
mmmmm I'm sure the condemmed cell in the Bastille was equally as comfortable.
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
11 Nov 2015
Total posts 1
What a way to spoil such a good reputation, by squeezing in as many people as you can. Who would want to sit in that number 3 seat in the middle?
Qantas - Qantas Frequent Flyer
17 May 2015
Total posts 55
It looks like my flight from Manchester to Dubai on the 12th Jan, is a Two Class A380...Could this be right?
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
17 Apr 2014
Total posts 16
What can I say, from the greedy 3-4-3 on 777's vs 3-3-3 on other airlines, to now a greedy 3-5-3 on the greedy A380 update. I always new Emirates liked profit, but I think this is now totally overboard. Would "anyone" in their right mind want to sit in the inside middle seat. This reminds me of the Continental Airlies DC10's in the 1990's. Realy Emirates, this is one step too far. For a so called (once was) premium carrier, greed has just got too much. It is bad enough that your business class service on the A380's at times resembles McDonald at lunchtime, where air crew are more interested in chatting than providing business class quality service. Shame on you...really. What next, coin slots on the lav doors??
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
07 Sep 2012
Total posts 146
My first international flight was on an Air NZ DC10, from AKL to LAX via HNL, with a 2-5-2 configuration in Y. It never occured to me to ask for an aisle seat, and consequently I found myself stuck in the middle seat of 5 for the whole journey. Never again did I make the same mistake.
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
11 Mar 2015
Total posts 191
like a packed bus service on economy-next move will be use the cargo hole for more seats-but this is what you get if you can only afford to fly on economy which is not cheap either-no wonder that emirates made a huge profit already this year-overpriced and mediocre to say the best-fly with rivals instead-Qatar and Etihad much better anyday
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
22 Apr 2017
Total posts 5
If you people bother to read carefully, you will notice that the article does not say Emirates are adopting a 3-5-3 configuration. They mention it in the context that the squeeze is coming generally. The first airline to install such a config will definitely be Qantas, the leaders in discomfort
Emirates Airlines - Skywards
22 Apr 2017
Total posts 5
A very irresponsibly written article BT!!! You lead the untrained minds of some people like 69Shania69 to believe that Emirates is introducing 3-5-3. They are not! Airbus is introducing the concept for airlines (like Qantas) who are far too greedy to ever consider a weird concept called passenger comfort
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