Emirates expanded its premium economy cabin to all its flights to and from Delhi and Kolkata from Sunday, October 25, and introduced its Airbus A380 on one of its four daily frequencies from Delhi for the first time.
The remaining three daily Delhi flights will be upgraded to refurbished Boeing 777 aircraft with a four-class configuration of first, business, premium economy and economy, replacing the current three-class offering. Premium economy will also be available on all 12 weekly Kolkata-Dubai flights, up from five a week at present. The cabin now covers six of the nine Indian cities Emirates operates to, about half of its 168 weekly departures from India.
Essa Sulaiman Ahmad, Emirates' senior vice president of commercial operations for West Asia and Indian Ocean, said the Indian market has matured and there is "extremely high demand" for travel, including rising demand for premium cabin seats. He said the cabin also suits passengers flying beyond Dubai to markets like Europe and North America, where it is widely offered.
Delhi becomes the third Indian city served by the A380, after Mumbai in 2014 and Bengaluru in 2022. The aircraft will fly in a four-class, 468-seat configuration, the carrier's lowest-capacity superjumbo. Delhi last saw Emirates' A380 in the summer of 2010, when the airline operated a one-off service marking 25 years of flights to India and the opening of Terminal Three.
Data from aviation analytics firm Cirium shows Emirates is offering 2,537 premium economy seats per week on flights from India in November, up 80.2 percent year on year and 73.4 percent from September. In November 2023 the figure was 784, and in November 2022 it was nil. Economy seats from India total 50,264 in November, down 2.4 percent year on year.
Based on reporting by indianexpress.com and simpleflying.com.