World’s best premium economy seat finally makes it to Melbourne with Emirates

The premium economy seat voted the world’s best by travellers has finally made it to Melbourne at the front of the lower deck of Emirates’ A380s.

A cabin eight-years in the making has finally made it to Melbourne on Emirates’ A380 aircraft.

The 56-seat premium economy cabin sits at the front of the superjumbo’s lower deck in a space previously filled with 88 economy seats.

With plush leather upholstery, large in-flight entertainment screens and almost a metre of legroom, the premium economy seats are considered by Emirates to be on par with business class in “some other airlines”.

In fact Emirates Australasia vice-president Barry Brown said members of the airline’s sales team were so impressed with the new offering, they were concerned business class passengers might “trade down” to premium economy.

Their fears were not realised however, with economy passengers more than happy to “trade up” even at more than twice their usual fare.

“Demand has significantly exceeded expectations,” Mr Brown said.

“We’ve not had to do any tactical advertising, and that’s something that is really rare. We’ve seen our competitors do tactical advertising but we haven’t had to.”

Emirates is introducing its premium economy cabin to Melbourne from April 19.

As a result one-way fares to London via Dubai were as high as $2700 in premium economy in the peak northern summer period, but in October travellers could expect to pay around $2000 each way. In comparison, passengers sitting in the 338-seat economy cabin would pay between $1000 and $1300 to Europe and about $900 one-way later in the year.

The upper deck business and first class cabins were another big step up in fares, selling for between $5000 and $8500 for a one-way trip, with similar prices in October.

Mr Brown said he was not expecting significant changes to fares particularly in premium cabins because of the strength of the demand.

“We’re only just starting to see corporate travel come back. To date it’s all been leisure travellers filling the premium cabins, and there’s no sign of that demand waning as yet,” he said.

There was also the revenue recovery factor, with Emirates losing significant dollars during the pandemic when the airline continued to operate to Australia sometimes with no passengers on board.

“We weren’t subsidised and we didn’t have any JobKeeper for example,” Mr Brown said.

“When people say our airfares our high, well we kept the country flowing in the tough times and we’re charging what we think is a fair price in the good times.”

As only the fifth destination in Emirates’ vast network to be graced with the four-class A380, Melbourne travellers will find the new product on one of the three services a day out of the city.

Both A380s flying in and out of Sydney now have premium economy and Emirates passengers on Auckland, Christchurch and London flights also have a chance to experience it.

Mr Brown said they hoped to have 67 A380s and 53 Boeing 777s retrofitted with the luxe cabin by 2025, a total of nearly 4000 premium economy seats.

Although Emirates might be a bit late to the premium economy party that was first introduced by Taiwan’s Eva Air in the late 1990s, Mr Brown was confident they had got it right.

Last year’s Skytrax World Airline awards recognised the Emirates’ product as the best premium economy seat in the skies, ahead of Singapore Airlines and Qantas.

Originally published as World’s best premium economy seat finally makes it to Melbourne with Emirates