Emirates has made this announcement:

Priding itself on a brand promise of ‘Fly Better’, Emirates is investing over US$ 2 billion to enhance its inflight customer experience, including a massive programme to retrofit over 120 aircraft with the latest interiors, plus an array of other service improvements across all cabins starting in 2022.

Sir Tim Clark, President Emirates Airline said: “While others respond to industry pressures with cost cuts, Emirates is flying against the grain and investing to deliver ever better experiences to our customers. Through the pandemic we’ve continued to launch new services and initiatives to ensure our customers travel with the assurance and ease, including digital initiatives to improve customer experiences on the ground. Now we’re rolling out a series of intensive programmes to take Emirates’ signature inflight experiences to the next level.”

Some of Emirates’ latest initiatives include: elevated meal choices, a brand new vegan menu, a ‘cinema in the sky’ experience, cabin interior upgrades, sustainable choices and a generous approach to the little touches that make travel memorable.

Starting from August, Emirates’ passengers can look forward to:

New Inspirations, New Menus:  An award-winning team of chefs, a world-class catering team and a wide variety of suppliers have been assembled to design and deliver the best fine dining experience in the sky. New menus will be served on select Emirates routes in First Class, featuring dishes such as pan-fried salmon trout with moqueca sauce and creole rice, roasted duck breast with orange thyme jus, steamed broccolini and fondant potatoes. New menus will also be introduced to Business and Economy on the 1^st of September.

Purposefully Vegan Choices: Emirates’ new vegan menu is carefully curated to cater to the growing numbers of customers pursuing this thoughtful lifestyle. Vegans, or anyone interested in a delicious and healthy plant-based meal, will enjoy handcrafted gourmet dishes such as pan-roasted king oyster mushrooms, flavoursome jackfruit biryani and sliced kohlrabi garnished with burnt orange. Desserts are a decadent affair with choices of chocolate truffle cake with hazelnut, pistachio and gold leaf, or green grape tart adorned with candied rose petals, vanilla custard, and berry compote glistening with yuzu pearls.

The Champagne and Caviar Experience: Emirates’ First Class experience, always a benchmark for service excellence, has been upped a notch in 2022. Customers can now savour unlimited portions of Persian caviar as part of the ‘dine on demand’ service, with an exquisite pairing of the world-renowned Dom Perignon vintage champagne. Emirates is the only airline with an exclusive agreement to offer the luxury brand on-board.

Cinema in the Sky: First Class customers can create a memorable movie moment on-board by ordering cinema snacks as they enjoy the 5,000 channels on Emirates’ ice inflight entertainment system. The cinema snack menu includes moreish classics such as lobster rolls, juicy sliders, edamame, and salted popcorn, and can be ordered on demand. All passengers can also curate their own ice experience before their flight, simply by browsing and pre-selecting movies or TV shows on the Emirates app, which can then be synced to ice the moment they board, maximising the seamless travel experience.

Farm to Fork – Sustainable Supply Chain: Emirates’ customers departing on flights from Dubai can begin crunching on fresh greens harvested from Bustanica, the world’s largest vertical farm and newly-opened US$40 million joint venture investment through Emirates Flight Catering. Emirates is continuing to invest in sustainable operations and supply chains, seeking local food suppliers and farms wherever possible to serve the freshest produce on board.

Specialised Hospitality Training for Cabin Crew: Emirates has partnered with Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, one of the world’s top hospitality management schools, to craft the Emirates Hospitality strategy and encourage inspiring customer experiences. Emirates Cabin Crew have already begun engaging in intensive training programmes focused on delivering the four service pillars: Excellence, Attentiveness, Innovation and Passion.

Upgraded Cabin Interiors in all Classes: The most significant investment is an extensive and record-breaking refurbishment of the aircraft fleet interiors, where cabins will be retrofitted with new or reupholstered seats, new panelling, flooring and other cabin features. Benefitting all Emirates passengers, every cabin class will be refreshed and new Premium Economy cabins installed. After the retrofit, Emirates will have a total of 120 aircraft offering Premium Economy seats – the only airline in the region to offer this cabin class, and enhanced interiors and features across all other cabins. With its first aircraft scheduled to roll into the Emirates Engineering Centre for retrofitting in November, planning work and trials have begun in earnest.

Additionally, Emirates confirms there will be more announcements about new products and services in the near future.

Emirates aircraft photo gallery:

Emirates Airlines has made this announcement:

Emirates has revealed a new custom A380 livery dedicated to Dubai’s newest architectural icon and centre for pioneering concepts and ideas, the Museum of the Future.

The first Emirates A380 (A6-EVK) (above) to sport this exciting new livery, takes flight on May 5 to Los Angeles. As its nine other aircraft siblings roll out of the dedicated Aircraft Appearance Centre at Emirates Engineering  over the coming weeks, Emirates’ Museum of the Future A380s will be deployed on routes to Europe as well as key Arab regional cities.

Note: 10 A380s will wear this special livery.

This initiative underscores the airline’s unwavering commitment to support Dubai’s vision as the leading city of the future, a hub for innovation and testbed for emerging technologies. It also crystallises the UAE’s 50 years of development and progress.

The seven storey, pillarless, torus-shaped Museum of the Future, dubbed as the ‘world’s most beautiful building’, has become one of Dubai’s definitive design marvels, and aims to inspire the world to imagine the possibilities of tomorrow, featuring mesmerising installations and futuristic experiences. The building’s ring forms a void to represent unknown and undiscovered knowledge.

The Museum will also act as an incubator for scientists, thinkers and researchers to bring their bold ideas and visions of the future to life, especially across areas like sustainability, outer space, health, and other critical global challenges. It will also be a platform to trial and demonstrate the latest technological discoveries, with prototypes that will continually evolve from emerging start-ups and established technology enterprises.

The ring shaped, Arabic calligraphy encapsulated building encircles both sides of the aircraft, and features the message ‘Journey to the future’ across the fuselage, covering a total of 336 sqm on the A380. The façade is decorated with quotes from His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. The airline will produce 10 A380 liveries in total, which will fly across close to 30 destinations around the world in the coming year, carrying the museum’s message of creating a better future, now.

In other news, Emirates will be unveiling its full Premium Economy cabin experience from May 9-12 at Arabian Travel Market 2022 (ATM).

The region’s leading travel and tourism exhibition is expected to welcome 20,000 visitors this year, with the theme of ‘The future of international travel and tourism’, and Emirates’ iconic presence at the event this year will be fittingly themed ‘The future is now’.

The Emirates stand will also offer members of the travel and tourism industry from over 112 countries a chance to experience the airline’s signature products in every cabin class.

Over ATM’s four days, Emirates’ executives and commercial teams will be at the airline’s stand with a busy agenda of face-to-face business meetings, taking the opportunity to network and reconnect with travel trade industry partners, and establishing new partnerships in line with the airline’s work to help the industry collectively rebuild better for the future.

The highly popular Emirates Premium Economy seat which will be on display at ATM is a luxurious take on the traditional cabin, providing more comfort with legroom of up to 40 inches, wide seats that span 19.5 inches with a generous 8 inch recline, and other thoughtful touches for customers to comfortably sit back and relax.

In addition, Emirates will also feature its show-stopping Boeing 777-300ER game-changer First Class fully enclosed private suite, Boeing 777 Business Class seat, newest generation A380 Onboard Lounge, along with other iconic products such the First Class Shower Spa and its generously pitched game-changer Economy Class seats.

The Emirates stand is located in Hall 3, stand number ME3210 at ATM.

Emirates aircraft photo gallery:

Emirates will make a full return of passenger services to and from Casablanca from February 8, 2022.

The return of Casablanca in Morocco marks a full restoration of Emirates’ pre-pandemic African network including 21 cities spread across the continent. Customers flying to and from Casablanca can safely travel on Emirates to Dubai, and enjoy an array of onward connections to Europe, the Middle East and GCC, the Americas and West Asia.

Emirates will operate to Casablanca with daily flights using its modern Boeing 777-300ER. EK 751 will depart Dubai at 0730hrs, arriving in Casablanca at 1315hrs. EK 752 will depart Casablanca at 1505hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0130hrs the next day.

In other news, Emirates has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Turespaña, Spanish Tourism Institute, to help boost trade and tourism to Spain.

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group welcomed Her Excellency María Reyes Maroto Illera, Spanish Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, at the Emirates Group Headquarters.

The MoU was signed by Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, Divisional Senior Vice President, International Affairs at Emirates and Miguel Ángel Sanz Castedo, Director General of Turespana. The ceremony was also attended by Juan Ignacio Diaz Bidart, Cabinet Chief to the Minister, Ministry of Industry; Iñigo de Palacio, Spanish Ambassador to the UAE; Andres Salinero, Trade and Economic Counsellor, Embassy of Spain; and  Daniel Rosado Bayon, Director, Spain Tourism Office, Tourism Counsellor, Embassy of Spain.

Emirates, the world’s largest international airline, has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Turespaña, Spanish Tourism Institute, to help boost trade and tourism to Spain. His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman and Chief Executive, Emirates Airline and Group welcomed Her Excellency María Reyes Maroto Illera, Spanish Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, at the Emirates Group Headquarters.

The MoU was signed by Sheikh Majid Al Mualla, Divisional Senior Vice President, International Affairs at Emirates and Miguel Ángel Sanz Castedo, Director General of Turespana. The ceremony was also attended by Juan Ignacio Diaz Bidart, Cabinet Chief to the Minister, Ministry of Industry; Iñigo de Palacio, Spanish Ambassador to the UAE; Andres Salinero, Trade and Economic Counsellor, Embassy of Spain; and  Daniel Rosado Bayon, Director, Spain Tourism Office, Tourism Counsellor, Embassy of Spain.

Emirates will resume passenger operations between Dubai and five African countries starting from January 29, 2022, offering customers more choice, superior value and enhanced connectivity to and through Dubai.

The significant restoration of services will include Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; Dar El Salaam, Tanzania; Nairobi, Kenya; Harare, Zimbabwe; Emirates’ three South African gateways Johannesburg, Cape Town and Durban.

Customers flying in and out of Emirates’ African gateways can safely connect to Dubai and to an array of onwards connections to Europe, Middle East, the Americas, West Asia and Australasia.

• South Africa: Flights between Dubai and South Africa will operate as a daily flight to and from Johannesburg, effective January 29 and double daily services from February 1. Flights to and from Cape Town and Durban will operate daily from February 1.

o   Emirates flight EK 761 departs Dubai at 0440hrs, arriving in Johannesburg at 1055hrs. EK 762 departs Johannesburg at 1325hrs, arriving in Dubai at 2345hrs. The second daily flight, EK 763, departs Dubai at 1005hrs, arriving in Johannesburg at 1630hrs. The return flight, EK 764, leaves Johannesburg at 1850hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0505hrs the next day.

o   EK 772 from Dubai to Cape Town departs at 0355hrs, arriving in Cape Town at 1145hrs. EK 771 leaves Cape Town at 1825hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0555hrs the next day. EK 775 departs Dubai at 1035hrs, arriving in Durban at 1705hrs, and EK 776 takes off from Durban at 1900hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0515hrs the next day.

•  Kenya: Emirates will operate 10 weekly flights to Nairobi from  January 29. EK 719 and 720 will operate on Sunday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, taking off from Dubai at 0935hrs and arriving in Nairobi at 1345hrs, in turn leaving Nairobi at 1530hrs, and landing in Dubai at 2130hrs. EK 721 and 722 will fly on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday with EK 721 taking off from Dubai at 0210hrs, arriving in Nairobi at 0620hrs. EK 722 will leave Nairobi at 2355hrs, arriving in Dubai at 0555hrs.
• Ethiopia: Emirates flights to Addis Ababa will operate daily from January 30, with EK 723 taking off from Dubai at 0925hrs, arriving in Addis Ababa at 1240hrs.  EK 724 leaves Addis Ababa at 1505hrs, arriving in Dubai at 2015hrs.
• Tanzania: Emirates will operate to Dar Es Salaam with five flights a week from January 30. EK 725 will take off from Dubai at 0930hrs, arriving in Dar Es Salaam at 1355hrs. EK 726 will leave Dar Es Salaam at 1525hrs, landing in Dubai at 2150hrs.
• Zimbabwe: Emirates will operate to Harare with six weekly flights linked to its Lusaka service from January 30. EK 713 leaves Dubai at 0920 hrs, with a stop in Lusaka, and arrives in Harare at 1700hrs. EK 714 takes off from Harare at 1845hrs, stopping in Lusaka, and continuing on to Dubai to arrive at 0625hrs the next day.

All passengers traveling from Emirates’ African network with Dubai as their final destination require a 48 hour PCR test. Passengers must present a valid negative COVID-19 PCR test certificate with a QR code for a test conducted at an approved facility, and validity must be calculated from the time the sample was collected. Upon arrival in Dubai, passengers will undergo an additional Covid-19 PCR test and remain in self quarantine until the results of the test are received.