Emirates raises the bar for in-flight drinks
dubai — Flying bars that cater to premium passengers on the world’s biggest fleet of A380 jetliners are set for a saloon-style upgrade as Emirates seeks to lure affluent travellers amid slowing revenue growth.
Out will go the semicircular benches on which passengers have perched since Emirates introduced the on-board lounges almost a decade ago, to be replaced by an altogether more comfortable setup featuring a table for four located either side of the counter and below the superjumbo’s windows.
In addition to the eight seats, the new watering holes will have room for 18 standing guests, so that drinkers can still prop up the horseshoe-shaped bar if they prefer. And almost in anticipation of people finding it harder to drag themselves away, the areas will get soundproof curtains to separate them from adjoining first- and business-class cabins.
Emirates, the world’s biggest long-haul airline, has “taken inspiration from private yacht cabins” in revamping its lounges, president Tim Clark said in a statement, adding that the design will make the areas “more intimate and conducive for passengers to socialise”.
One table has double berths facing each other, while the other features L-shaped seating around a smaller table, with each person having their own seat belt so that they’ll be able to remain in the bar even when the plane encounters turbulence.
A “champagne” colourscheme and ambient lighting will also be used to give an “airier look and feel”, according to Dubaibased Emirates, which is enhancing its cabins after forecasting a year of flat growth as the oil-price slump continues to crimp travel to Middle East states.
A mock-up of the lounge went on show at the ITB Berlin travel fair on Wednesday, with the first
Emirates has taken inspiration from private yacht cabins... [making areas] more intimate and conducive for passengers to socialise Tim Clark, President of Emirates
due to be installed in a new A380 at Airbus Group’s interiors factory in Hamburg before entering service in July, followed by six more by the year’s end. All 50 or so double-deckers in the Emirates backlog will get the same treatment, though it doesn’t plan to retrofit the 90 already delivered.
Zoe Ferguson, an Emirates flight attendant who demonstrated the bar at the fair, said passengers can generally be relied upon to limit their own consumption, though crew are “very vigilant” in ensuring customer safety. While the bars are popular with travelling sports teams, most tend not to imbibe, she said. The company’s existing bar featured prominently in a 2015 TV ad, in which actress Jennifer Aniston was shown being offered a bag of peanuts and a hand towel by American-accented flight attendants after asking for her plane’s lounge and shower — only to be transported to an Emirates A380 where she sipped a drink while describing her “nightmare” to the barman.
On-board lounges had their heyday in the 1970s, when faltering economies and occupancy levels as low as 50 per cent prompted carriers to remove seats from their brand new Boeing 747s and McDonnell Douglas DC-10s and fit room-sized drinking dens in a bid to lure travellers and boost revenue.
The luxury touch wasn’t restricted to premium cabins, with American Airlines even installing Wurlitzer electric pianos in its coach-class lounges. Once the economy picked up more seats were added and the bars began to disappear, with their demise hastened as the 1973 oil crisis put capacity at a premium.
Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic Airways brought back the lounge for its Upper Class customers decades later, though only a handful of other carriers — among them Qatar Airways, Korean Air Lines and Etihad Airways — have followed its lead. — Bloomberg