Has Emirates Unveiled The Best Premium Economy Seat To Date?

The Premium Economy game is heating up, and while Emirates was late to the party, they may have arguably unveiled the best Premium Economy seat product to date, slightly edging out competitors like Japan Airline and EVA Air.

First introduced on their new Airbus A350-900s and made available for booking in 2022, their premium seats were similar to others, offering a recliner-style seat with a proper foot rest area, 39 inches of seat pitch and 20-inch-wide seats. Overall, the seats and accompanying soft product and service was well received, and the carrier has started rolling it out to the rest of its Boeing 777 and Airbus A380 fleet.

The thing with Premium Economy is that airlines have to walk a tight rope where, on one hand, they are pressured to up their game to remain competitive, but at the same time, they can’t make it so good that it steps into the realm of true business class.

On Thursday, Emirates announced an updated PE product, featuring fully-electrically adjustable seats, with large privacy dividers than can be raised or lowered with the touch of a switch. The fixed-shell recliner-style seats will also recline into a cradle position so as to not intrude on guests sitting in the respective row behind.

I am a bit curious as to how the privacy control screen will work? According to the release, they say guests can raise and lower the partition, as well as lock it in position. Will there be a single screen control switch per partition, or will each passenger have their own control on each side? Who gets dibs on raising or lowering it? If it’s locked by one person, can the other override and unlock it?

These updated seats will be featured on all new A350 deliveries, and will be laid out in a similar 2-3-2 manner across four rows for a total of 28 PE seats. As mentioned before, these seats will offer up to 39 inches of seat pitch, with each seat being 20 inches wide. Besides the 13.3-inch 4K entertainment touchscreens, they include USB-C and wireless charging, as well as a dedicated resting area to store your device when it’s being charged.

One other cool but debatable feature is the addition of Safran Seats U-Dream leather headrest, which have folding wings that act as a support for your head. No more lugging around neck pillows? While innovative in concept, many are already asking if these neck rests will be properly cleaned between flights. I’m sure many travelers won’t be too keen to have their face and mouth accidentally touching the surfaces of those headrest supports.

With all this in mind, is this the best Premium Economy product to date? On one hand, electrically-controlled seats aren’t new to the PE game, and is already a feature on Japan Airlines’ Airbus A350-1000 PE seats. Seat pitch is also a few inches behind others like EVA Air which offer up to 42 inches in PE on their 787s. However, Emirates’ privacy dividers do look to be much larger than the competition, and has that fancy option of being electrically opened or closed.

Emirates’ seats also feature U-Dream headrests, and is pretty game changing as it provides full side-to-side neck and head support, even though I’d wipe it down with a sanitary wipe before using them.

Even though Emirates might not have been first with the above-mentioned features, they do provide the overall best combination in my opinion.

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