Milestone: Emirates Reaches Landmark 100 Retrofitted Aircraft

Emirates has reached a landmark 100 aircraft refurbished under its retrofit programme, the largest known undertaken by any airline globally. Since work began in November 2022, 47 Airbus A380s and 53 Boeing 777s have been given a complete nose-to-tail refresh at the Emirates Engineering hangars in Dubai.

By the end of December 2026, around 20 additional aircraft will be upgraded, moving the airline significantly past the halfway point in its US$ 5 billion investment aimed at delivering a consistently elevated experience to customers.

Over a period of 44 months, the Emirates Engineering team has deployed more than 400 engineers and technicians, investing a collective 4.4 million man hours to transform 100 aircraft and deliver a sophisticated upgrade across the cabin interiors of all the aircraft.

Every aircraft was also fitted out with a new Premium Economy Cabin during the retrofit. More than 3,800 new Premium Economy seats have been installed in total as part of the initiative, accelerating the rollout of this much sought-after product to more routes across Emirates’ network, with more opportunities for customers to experience the highly acclaimed cabins.

Engineering the upgrade

Since the project began in November 2022, the Emirates Engineering team has retrofitted an average of 28 aircraft a year. As part of every retrofit, engineers completely take apart the interiors of the aircraft, execute a thorough refresh across all cabins armed with 4000+ parts for an A380 aircraft and 2500+ parts for a Boeing 777 aircraft and then put everything back together with precision.

Emirates’ Engineering team also developed innovative solutions to handle a project of monumental scale including the use of modified catering trucks inside the hangars to move large parts to and from the retrofit workshop to the aircraft.

In addition to developing zonal work progress tracking and specialised parts storage and retrieval procedures, the team has also designed and manufactured several pieces of specialised equipment for moving components and accessing all areas of the interior of the aircraft for the retrofit. Emirates Engineering has worked with over 100 suppliers to execute this ambitious project.