Emirates Designing “Game Changer” Economy: Will It Become A Reality?

When airlines introduce innovative new seating products, the focus is almost always on premium cabins. Over the years, we’ve seen countless airline executives tout how they’re working on developing a revolutionary new economy product, but almost nothing ever comes of it.

Sure, maybe economy gets bigger entertainment screens and better tech, but that’s about it, since airlines don’t want to allocate more real estate to each seat. Along those lines, Executive Traveller reports on how Emirates President Tim Clark is working on a new economy product, which is supposedly so revolutionary that he’s not sure it can actually be done. Hmmm…

Emirates working on revolutionary economy product

Emirates President Tim Clark is one of the industry’s brightest guys. He’s also a realist when it comes to product, since Emirates isn’t exactly focused on having an industry leading hard product. However, it seems that Clark is aiming for some major upgrades to the economy experience.

Emirates has reportedly already developed a prototype of its new economy seat, and is now working with seat manufacturers in hopes of making it a reality. As Clark describes it, “the trick is to take modern technology, our learnings in geometry and load, to be able to come up with a seat that will hopefully meet expectations.”

While Clark is confident he can “get it through the hangar doors,” regulatory approval is more of a concern, and he “can’t say whether that’s going to be successful or not,” as “it’s not an easy process.”

What could Emirates do that would truly be revolutionary? Emirates’ innovation here doesn’t seem to involve making seats wider or adding more legroom, but instead, involves making seats taller.

Clark explains, “it’s very difficult, we’ve got the usual financial economic metrics to work with, but I still think we can do a lot better in the way we present the comfort of the seat, the way it moulds to the body, the way the feet are treated, the legs.”

While he didn’t reveal specifics, he did state that “if you put four or five inches on the height of the seats, what could you play with if you did that?”

I’m intrigued by what Emirates could come up with

As I said above, I’m generally skeptical when airline executives tout plans to introduce a revolutionary economy product, since it rarely becomes a reality. That being said, what Clark describes sounds intriguing, and is a concept I haven’t heard before.

Vertical “real estate” doesn’t cost anything extra on a plane, assuming the seat isn’t materially heavier, so innovating in that direction seems logical enough. I think the question is, how do you make a seat better by making it taller, since the height of the seat isn’t typically the limiting factor in terms of seat comfort?

One also wonders just how revolutionary this product is, if there are concerns about how realistic it is for this to be certified. Is this simply about the crew needing to have a line of sight above seats, or is something else about this seat concept so wild that it could cause concern with safety regulators?

I’m not counting on this product becoming a reality anytime in the near future, though I’d sure to love to see a genuinely innovative economy concept that elevates the base level of comfort for passengers (unlike some of the economy add-on experiences we’ve seen, like Air New Zealand’s Skycouch).

Bottom line

Emirates is looking to introduce an innovative new economy product. The airline has already developed a prototype, and is now looking to partner with a seat manufacturer to make it a reality. Emirates’ President thinks the product is possible to design, but regulatory approval is more of a concern.

While the airline isn’t yet revealing exact details of what it’s hoping to design, the concept seems to be a focus on the height of the seat, rather than the width or legroom. The question is, how can seat height be used to radically improve comfort? So we’ll mark this as “developing” for now, but it sure could get interesting…

What do you make of Emirates’ concept of revolutionizing economy seat comfort?