Page 17 - AAA SEPTEMBER - OCTOBER 2022 Online Magazine

from Auckland and Kuala Lumpur, starting from 1 December. design. Emirates had earlier announced at
The non-stop services between Dubai and Auckland will be the the 2021 Dubai Airshow in November, that it
longest route on the Emirates network, clocking in 14,200 km. would retrofit 52 of its existing A380 aircraft
It is also one of the world’s longest non-stop scheduled com- with Premium Economy cabins and other
mercial flights. enhancements.
Emirates will also be the first airline to operate the A380 to
Bengaluru’s Kempegowda International Airport. Compared to
the Boeing 777 (-200LR / -300ER) which Emirates presently oper-
ates on the route; it can boost its capacity on a single flight by
up to 45 per cent when using the A380.Flights are scheduled to
begin on 30 October and Bengaluru will be the second city in
India to be served by Emirates’ A380. The type has been deployed
on the Dubai – Mumbai route since 2014.

Cabin Upgrade

In September, Emirates announced that it would debut its newly
retrofitted A380s featuring its latest Premium Economy cabins
to five new cities from December - New York JFK, San Francisco,
Melbourne, Auckland and Singapore. The carrier has also said
that it would add more Premium Economy seats on services to Sustainable Future
London Heathrow and Sydney, as the newly enhanced aircraft
sporting refreshed cabins enter scheduled service in greater Airbus has also been working to make the
numbers. A380 more environmentally sustainable
and in an important step in this direction,
Emirates has already debuted its Premium Economy Class to in March, announced that it had performed
London, Paris and Sydney to overwhelmingly positive customer the first A380 flight powered by 100 per cent
response, with demand exceeding expectations, according to Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). One of the
the carrier. Emirates’ A380s are configured in a four-class layout first A380s to be produced (MSN1) was also
and the new Premium Economy cabin is located at the front of unveiled earlier this year, as Airbus’ ZEROe
the main deck with 56 seats laid out in a 2-4-2 configuration. Demonstrator. This aircraft will be used as a

Emirates is making a multi-billion-dollar investment on its fleet flying testbed for future technologies to aid
retrofit programme, which begins in November. Emirates will Airbus in bringing zero-emission aircraft to
begin intensive work to upgrade and retrofit the interior cabins the market by 2035.
of 67 A380 and 53 Boeing 777 aircraft. Once the upgrade effort Airbus’ A380 test aircraft MSN1 made a
begins, one aircraft with the work completed will roll out into three-hour test flight from Blagnac Airport,
service every 16 days.
Toulouse, France for the SAF demonstration in
By 2025, Emirates will have installed nearly 4,000 new Premium March. One of the aircraft’s four engines was
Economy seats and refurbished 728 First Class suites and swapped with a Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine
upgraded over 5,000 Business Class seats to a new style and running on 100 per cent SAF. TotalEnergies
provided 27 tonnes of unblended SAF for the
flight, which was made from Hydroprocessed
Esters and Fatty Acids (HEFA), free of aromat-
ics and sulphur, and primarily consisting of
used cooking oil, as well as other waste fats.

This was the third Airbus aircraft to fly on
100 per cent SAF over a 12-month period.
The first test was done on an Airbus A350
in March 2021 followed by an A319neo sin-
gle-aisle aircraft in October 2021. At present
all Airbus aircraft are certified to fly with a
blend of up to a 50 per cent of SAF mixed
with jet fuel. Airbus has said that increased
use of SAF is a key component to achieving
the industry’s ambition of net-zero carbon
emissions by 2050.

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