An off-duty spy (?) enjoys Emirates current first class offerings.
The tagline for the first-class cabins on Emirates is “Master the Art of Me Time.” But becoming – and staying – an undisturbed party of one is about to become even easier in the airline’s new first-class suites. Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, Emirates’ divisional senior vice president, has described the new offerings as being “like a private railway cabin,” if a railway cabin was designed for one gloriously isolated person.
The new cabins will be revealed later this year on the airline’s Airbus A380s (although presumably not on the two-class, 600-plus passenger versions) and later in its Boeing 777s. And although Al Mualla didn’t spill many details about the designs or the features, it is believed that they’re the bedroom-style suites that Emirates has promised for the better part of the year. Last May, Emirates president Sir Tim Clark said that the airline was developing a bedroom-like first class seating option. He said
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.
Although Bloomberg suggests that Emirates is “[chasing] well-heeled passengers” who would be willing to pay for extra privacy for work or so they can sleep with their mouths open, Al Mualla said that the airline’s new offerings would be “more commercially viable.” But he declined to reveal which routes would feature the new cabins or an exact cost, saying only that they would be “almost the same pricing” as the existing options.
So we’ll just have to wait and see what “almost” the same dollars will get us, and how that differs from Emirates current first class offerings, which already offer privacy doors, lie-flat seats and a healthy dose of Me Time.