Emirates begins multi-million dollar program to modernize its fleet
Emirates tuesday began its massive 2-year retrofit programme with work starting on the first of 120 aircraft earmarked for a full cabin interior upgrade and the installation of the airline’s latest Premium Economy seats.
This ambitious project represents a multi-billion dollar investment to ensure Emirates’ customers fly better for the coming years.
After completing flight EK928 from Cairo to Dubai on Monday, A380 A6-EVM was steered to Hanger E at the Emirates Engineering Centre where a team of specialised engineers began prepping the aircraft for its makeover.
→ Emirates to deploy Airbus A380 on its Tokyo-Narita flights.
In addition to recruiting 190 additional staff for the project, Emirates is also engaged with 62 key partners and suppliers who have hired hundreds more skilled hands for the biggest-known aircraft retrofit programme in modern commercial aviation.
After months of meticulous planning, and months of detailed test runs on an actual A380 aircraft, engineers took stock and requested 2,200 part numbers. In turn, Emirates’ procurement team went into overdrive and raised 12,600 purchase orders for the initial phase of the programme. At the Emirates Engineering Centre, purpose-built workshops have been set up and stocked with parts and equipment for the project.
For the next 16 days, round the clock, teams of engineers and technicians will take apart the entire cabin interior of the A380 and put it back together again in a carefully planned and tested sequence.
Thousands of parts will be removed, replaced, or receive a facelift.
Programme pace
The second aircraft scheduled for a makeover, A6-EUW, will roll into Emirates Engineering Centre on 01 December.
As the programme goes into full swing, engineers will work simultaneously on two aircraft. This means, every eight days, one aircraft will be grounded and towed to Emirates Engineering for retrofitting. By 23 May 2024, all 67 A380s earmarked for the retrofit programme will be back in service and Emirates will then begin work on 53 of its Boeing 777s. By March 2025, all 120 retrofitted aircraft will be back in service.
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