Emirates Wants To Introduce a ‘Game Changing’ Economy Seat But Old Regulations Are Proving A Major Headache

Emirates is on a mission to transform the Economy Class experience with a ‘game-changing’ seat that will make ultra-long-haul flights more comfortable for those of us who are stuck at the back of the plane.

The Dubai-based carrier’s long-serving president and the architect of the airline that we know today, Sir Tim Clark, admits that the aviation industry hasn’t done enough to improve comfort levels for Economy Class passengers.

That’s not to say that Sir Tim is about to give us wider seats or extra legroom. These kinds of improvements could have been made years ago without any change to the design of the seat, but when it comes to revenue management, that’s a non-starter.

Instead, Emirates is looking at the ergonomics and geometry of the seat in a bid to make the experience a little more tolerable on flights that can stretch for 16 or 17 hours.

As Sir Tim told Australian publication Executive Traveller, “If you’ve got people sitting in a very tight cabin for 16-17 hours, we’ve got to do better than we’re doing at the moment.”

“We have to deal with all the things that really niggle the economy passengers, and particularly (for) long-haul travel,” Sir Tim continued.

If you can’t make the seat wider, one of the key changes that Emirates is looking at is to make it taller. But this is where the airline is facing regulatory problems… manufacturers that Emirates have approached say making Economy Seats any higher would prevent cabin crew from viewing the whole cabin.

This might seem like a strange requirement given that airlines have managed to install private suites in Business and First Class with tall walls and sliding privacy doors, but there remains a requirement for cabin crew to be able to view the entire Economy cabin.

One way that seat manufacturers got around the regulatory hurdle for cabin viewing requirements in new generation Business Class seats with privacy doors was to create a small gap between the door and suite, allowing crew to peek inside should they need to.

“I’ve been pulling the remains of my hair out,” Sir Tim jokes about his conversations with seat manufacturers.

“If you put four or five inches on the height of the seats, what could you play with if you did that? I’ve been told the cabin crew can’t see to the back, but (planes) have cameras everywhere now. The A380 is full of cameras,” Sir Tim told Executive Traveller.

While adding height to the Economy seat is clearly a key part of Emirates’ plan to improve the passenger experience, Sir Tim doesn’t want to be drawn on exactly what changes the airline has up its sleeves.

“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,” Sir Tim explained.

Emirates isn’t the only airline that has had lofty ideas to reimagine the long-haul Economy Class seat, although no carrier has yet to find the secret sauce that will satisfy the accountants and regulators.

Etihad Airways in neighboring Abu Dhabi once tried to reinvent the Economy Class, but it faced many of the issues that Emirates is now trying to overcome. In the end, the airline redesigned the headrest with a fixed wing that passengers could rest their heads on.