News
Emirates Business Class transitions from middle seat to private suite
"Having 2-3-2 in Business Class long since should have been abandoned," says Sir Tim Clark.
![Emirates Business Class](https://i.pointhacks.com/2025/01/28162721/emirates-business-class-1600-1024x576.jpg)
What we'll be covering
When we think of a middle seat on the plane, thoughts of a squishy Economy Class cabin come to mind. But for Emirates, middle seats have also been the reality of flying in the carrier’s Boeing 777 Business Class cabin. Yes, even on journeys between Australia and Europe via Dubai.
Let’s be honest. Nobody wants the middle seat at the best of times. Let alone on a voyage pushing 24 hours on one of the most expensive tickets money can buy. It doesn’t exactly scream ‘luxury’ to be wedged between two other people. Particularly when it means offering apologies every time you need to step past (or over) your seatmate to access the aisle. Yet, Emirates builds its brand on luxury, leaving a disconnect between brand perception and product reality.
That was, until recently. After many years of keeping those middle seats flying, the airline finally has a cabin refit program underway. Rather than the old 2-3-2 layout in Business Class, Emirates Boeing 777 Business Class moves to a 1-2-1 layout. The cabin will appear in Australian skies from late March. That’s aboard one of the airline’s daily Melbourne-Dubai services, bringing the Boeing 777 seat into line with the core Emirates Airbus A380 experience.
Emirates President Sir Tim Clark understands the frustration from travellers. In this discussion with Point Hacks and other invited media after the Australian Open finals in Melbourne, the airline boss explains why it’s taken so long to do something about that middle seat, and how the airline’s next Business Class will go one better.
American Express Platinum Card
- Sign-up Bonus: 200,000 bonus Membership Rewards points
- Rewards Earn Rate: Earn 2.25 Membership Rewards points per $1 on all eligible purchases, except for spend with government bodies, for which you will earn 1 point per $1 spent.
- Annual Fee: $1,450 p.a.
- Offer expires: 11 March 2025
The American Express Platinum Card is offering 200,000 bonus Membership Rewards points for new American Express Card Members who apply by 11 March 2025 and spend $5,000 on eligible purchases in the first 3 months of approval. It also comes with up to $400 in Global Dining Credit per calendar year and a $450 annual Travel Credit. A great card for those who want to earn Membership Rewards points on everyday spend and transferable to 12 major Airline Rewards Partner Programs. T&Cs apply.
Retiring the middle seat in Emirates Business Class
Clark doesn’t mince his words when he admits, ‘we were slipping.’ Removing the middle seat from Emirates Business Class ‘had to be done. Having 2-3-2 in Business Class long since should have been abandoned.’ The feedback from travellers had evidently become so harsh that Clark highlights ‘the (reputational) damage it does to us is a brand effect.’ In other words, it was making people think less of Emirates on the whole.
‘Some of our fleet and the product on board … (were) great when we brought into market. We were at the tip of the sword with regard to product development enhancement.’ But as for the expectations of modern travellers and those dreaded middle seats in Business Class, ‘we’re having to rip them all out,’ to keep up.
It’s pleasing to see Emirates finally taking action in this space. Especially so, when competing products like Qatar Airways’ Qsuite, unveiled in early 2017, have been flying for some time. Why has it taken Emirates so long to keep up, though?
‘By now, I would’ve had just short of 100 (Boeing) 777Xs on the original contract, which was signed in 2013,’ Clark explains. But ‘I haven’t got one.’ Emirates had been planning to use the Boeing 777X to replace its Boeing 777-300ERs. The 777X would bring with it a new and more passenger-pleasing seat. It would have been a simple case of out with the old, in with the new. But here we are in 2025, and Boeing continues to await certification for the 777X, meaning the manufacturer is yet to deliver a single 777X to any airline.
Rather than sitting around and continuing to wait, Clark had to take action. ‘We had to (do it) whether we like or not. The financial impact of that is US$4.5 billion out of our own resources to do that.’ With such a significant cost behind the refit, it highlights just how unpopular those middle seats really are in Emirates Business Class.
Emirates’ Boeing 777X delays beget a Boeing 777-300ER refit
Emirates hadn’t planned for the Boeing 777-300ER to remain in its fleet for so long. But as the clock kept ticking, the carrier found no other option than to continue using those jets to help underpin its global network.
‘We started looking at all the tail numbers, seeing, what would it take to retrofit? I said, don’t worry about the cost, just get it done,’ Clark reveals of the cabin refit program. ‘At that time, supply chain was also starting to knock on our door. We started (with) 50 aircraft for retrofit, (yet) we’re now doing 200. The whole fleet is being done.’
It’s a strategy that ‘speaks to the uncertainty of what the manufacturers will do for us in the future over the next 10-15 years. It’s not an easy one, but hey, you’ve got to get on with it. If you sit down and hope it’ll all go away, it won’t. So just make those decisions, get it done.’
![Emirates President Sir Tim Clark](https://i.pointhacks.com/2025/01/29130206/emirates-president-sir-tim-clark-new.jpg)
Emirates had been hoping to debut an exciting new Business Class seat with the launch of the Boeing 777X. But with so much time having passed, what would have been a revolutionary seat then has now been shelved.
‘I went onto the first 777X in July 2019. 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. There was no way we could leave things as they were. Technology, particularly the customer-facing side of things, moves at quite a pace. Whether it be Wi-Fi connectivity, whether it be the TVs themselves, the seats… we just had to throw them all away.’
‘I took that decision in the first part of 2021,’ Clark continues. ‘We had to make a payment of about €20-30 million to the manufacturer. But in the end, as I said, it’s just one of the things you have to do. You can stay in business and the pace of technology, the pace of cabin innovation is still quite significant.’
Emirates’ newer Boeing 777 seat is a placeholder
Emirates may be replacing its 2-3-2 Business Class cabins with a 1-2-1 layout, but it’s still a stop-gap measure. It’s a way of introducing a Business Class seat onto the Boeing 777s that Emirates’ customers would expect to find on its Airbus A380s and keeping people happy enough for now.
Speaking of the Boeing 777X with its brand-new product, ‘we were going to have it ready in October of this year for flying.’ But without a single Boeing 777X delivered to Emirates or anybody else, ‘clearly (October is) not the case.’
To the new Business Class experience that Emirates’ Boeing 777Xs would offer, ‘I finished the interior product development at the beginning of last year,’ Clark shares. But he’s using the delivery delay to see if he can go one better. Even though ‘we’ve already done quite a lot of product work on that … (we’re) having another look at it again.’
If Emirates does decide to change its cabin offering before the Boeing 777X is delivered, Clark says the manufacturer needs to be ready. ‘We reserve our position, as far as our friends in Boeing are concerned, with regard to the ability of them to deliver at the pace that we need, (re:) product enhancement and development.’
‘If we have to stop everything and then introduce new designs of products, we will have to be able to do that. That’s the price that they will have to pay for the issues that they’ve created for us by seven-year delays.’
Will we see closing doors in Emirates’ new Business Class?
Okay, so Emirates is finally bringing universal direct aisle access to its Boeing 777 Business Class. But with this already being a staple of other airlines’ offerings for many years, it’s fair to ask, what’s going to follow?
‘Many of the ideas I see all around in the business today (are) just starting to come through (on other airlines),’ Clark comments. ‘Doors on Business Class suites, (First Class) suites, and all those kinds of things.’
‘The suite – the enclosed suite – was our idea, right? The first was back in the ’90s when we put it on the A340-500, and then others have taken the suite. So they’ve introduced them into Business Class. The first attempts at those were pretty marginal, (ditto) the privacy they gave. They’ve become more robust now as people have decided that they won’t have First Class, they’ll have a sort of hybrid between First and Business.’
Emirates, though, continues to offer both First Class and Business Class. It unveiled a new ‘game changer’ suite in 2017, taking privacy to a new level with the enclosures running all the way to the ceiling. I’ve been fortunate enough to have flown it a couple of times, and it’s like travelling in your own little bubble. It doesn’t feel at all like a commercial flight.
![New First Class on the Emirates Boeing 777](https://i.pointhacks.com/2025/01/28163930/emirates-game-changer-first-class-from-above.jpg)
Speaking of privacy doors in general, ‘you see these things coming in. If you haven’t got them, then people are going to say to you, well you really have to have them.’ That’s becoming true not just of First Class, but of Business Class as well. ‘The people – the business community (and) premium cabin community – love them.’ So when it comes to Emirates’ next generation of Business Class, ‘I guess we’ll have them,’ Clark says of privacy doors, with a playful smile.
One day, Emirates might also consider renaming the cabin entirely. He quips, ‘I was never happy with (the term) Business Class … because these aren’t just businesspeople.’ But it seems, leisure travellers will forgive the name if it means flying in a much better seat.
Also read: Emirates brings new Business Class to Australia
Imagery courtesy of Emirates.
Stay up to date with the latest news, reviews and guides by subscribing to Point Hacks’ email newsletter.
He really hit the nail on the head vis a vis the dreaded middle seat. The ‘risk’ of getting lumped into that undesirable location is totally the number one reason I avoid Emirates, in case I get downgraded to a 777. So many years of lost revenue for Emirates when I flew (and I still fly with) Qatar and Etihad instead of Emirates. And I’m surely not the only traveller who feels strongly enough about this issue to avoid EK….So glad Sir Tim realized this was a long term danger to his airline, and is doing something about it.