Emirates Introduces Empty-Seat Booking Option for Economy Class

Travelers with a sufficient budget who desire optimum personal space and privacy aboard their flights will be happy to hear that Emirates has introduced a new offering to aid in social distancing.

Emirates’ Economy Class customers who already hold a confirmed booking now have the ability to purchase up to three empty adjoining seats on their flights. But, they won’t be able to reserve empty seats in advance. Rather, empty seats are only available for purchase at the airport check-in counter, just before their departure and based upon availability.

If adjoining empty seats are still available at the time of check-in, customers will be paying between $55 and $165 per empty seat, plus any applicable taxes. Emirates said that it is introducing this new product on the basis of recent customer feedback, which (unsurprisingly) indicated that many customers were in want of extra space and privacy while still being able to fly in Economy Class.

Given ongoing pandemic conditions, many customers seek the sense of safety that an extra distance from others offers, while traveling couples might enjoy the privacy of an entire row to themselves, and parents with infants or small children may want more room to move around without bumping elbows with strangers.

The new seat-booking option arrives eight months after the Dubai-based airline’s executives declared the practice of blocking middle seats free of charge to aid in social distancing an unreasonable business move, Fox News observed.

“All this talk about social distancing inside the aircraft is nice,” Emirates’ Head of Corporate Communications, Boutros Boutros, said at a July 2020 business conference. “The economy of the aircraft is built on filling it, filling the seats,” he continued. “Having the space (empty) I don’t think is going to be an option, unless the passenger is willing to pay.”

Besides the new empty-seat booking option, Emirates currently has a few special Economy Class seating categories for customers to choose from:

—Extra legroom seats: exit row seats offering additional space but subject to safety requirements

—Twin seats: seats in a row of two at the back of Emirates’ Boeing 777 aircraft, and on the upper deck of Emirates’ 2-class Airbus A380 aircraft

—Preferred seats: seats in the first section of the cabin and on the upper deck of a two-class A380

—Regular seats: all other Economy seats

For more information, visit emirates.com.