€30m bill for Emirates’ scrapped Boeing 777X business class

Emirates chief Sir Tim Clark has revealed the airline scrapped its original Boeing 777X business class seats at a cost of “about €20-30 million” due to ongoing delays for the next-gen jetliner.

The first 777-9 was due to be handed over to Emirates in 2020, but the Gulf carrier now doesn’t expect deliveries to begin until 2027.

“In July 2019 I went onto the first 777-9,” Clark told Executive Traveller at a media briefing earlier this year.

“It was without the ‘game-changer’ first class suites, which hadn’t been built, but everything else was ready to go.”

“And so here we are six years later,” Clark reflected. “Right now I would have had 107 777s on the original contract, which was signed in 2013. I (still) haven’t got one.”

Emirates had to rip out its original 777X seats due to Boeing's delivery delays.

This gave competitors the opportunity to soar ahead with new business class products on other jets, ranging from new Boeing 787s and Airbus A350s to Boeing 777 refits.

That long roll-call includes Air India, American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Etihad Airways, JAL, Malaysia Airlines, Singapore Airlines and newcomer Riyadh Air.

As a result, Clark decided the best course of action was to abandon the original 777X seats and go back to square one.

“There was no way we could leave things as they were because technology – particularly in the customer facing side of things – moves at quite a pace, whether it be Wi-Fi connectivity, the TVs themselves and the seats themselves.... so we just had to throw ‘em all away.”

It was a hard call, and an expensive one – “just on that we had to make a payment of about €20-30 million to the manufacturer,” Clark said.

“But in the end, it’s just one of those things you have to do.”

Emirates' latest business class is the 'S Lounge' product of the A350.

Emirates rebooted its 777-9 business class to a clean-sheet design which is tipped to be a suite-style berth with high partitions and sliding privacy doors.

“The enclosed suite was our idea right back in the ‘90s when we put it on the A340-500 (in first class) and then others have taken the suite (and) introduced them into business class,” Clark recounted to Executive Traveller.

“So you see (business class 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.”

“And the people, the business community, the premium cabin community love them.”

Emirates' rivals will soon include Riyadh Air, which plans doored business class suites with a double bed.

But even that updated design is being given another look, to ensure it’s competitive with the latest suites of rivals – and Boeing could be forced to pick up the tab for any changes.

“We’re having another look at it again,” Clark told Executive Traveller in January this year.

“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 (Boeing) will have to pay for the issues that they’ve created for us, like seven-year delays.”

While waiting on Boeing to hand over the keys to Emirates’ first 777X jets, the airline was also forced to embark on an extensive and costly upgrade of its current Boeing 777-300 and Airbus A380 fleet, “a financial impact that’s US$4.5 billion cash out of our own resources.”

This included doing away with the dated 2-3-2 business class layout of its 777s, which Clark admitted “long since should have been abandoned,”

“I see all around in the business today, (airlines) just starting to come through doors on business suites… but we were slipping. So the damage it does to us is a brand effect.”

Also read: Surprising details for Emirates’ all-new economy seat