The black SUV, included in the $10,000 round-trip Emirates Business Class ticket, picks me up at 8 a.m. for flight 204, departing JFK airport for Dubai at 11:20 a.m. It’s a quick ride to the airport, where an Emirates baggage handler waits at the curb. In less than five minutes, my bags are checked, boarding pass issued. When the flight is called, I walk from the Business Class Lounge, one of the airline’s 30 lounges worldwide, passing a wall-sized Emirates ad that reads “Boredom Is Grounded Indefinitely,” and step straight into the upper deck of the Airbus A380, the world’s biggest jetliner, tall as an eight-story building.
I sink into the flatbed seat, which, compared with those of other international industry leaders, including Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, is state-of-the-art, as is the 1,600-channel in-seat entertainment system. There’s a small minibar of soft drinks and snacks, but who wants to fetch their own drinks in business and first class? The allure of Emirates goes beyond its hardware into what aviation writer Gary Leff tells me is the “halo effect of some of the over-the-top things they do.” He calls the in-your-face features the “Emirates bling”: the two enormous spa showers in first class; the 14 first-class suites, each with a vanity table, closet, 23-inch TV screen and electronic doors that seal shut for total seclusion; the young fleet, which includes 50 A380s (already more than any other airline, with 90 more on order).
The plane lifts off in a quiet purr—with 550-plus tons and 500 passengers—and soon a caravan of flight attendants, fluent in a dozen languages, is rolling down the aisles, a parade of smiles and service.
“You’re able to park things that are difficult in your life,” a woman’s voice assures me from the noise-canceling headset. “Untether yourself from your schedule.... Let all that go.”
It’s time to head to the lounge. It’s big and circular, with a horseshoe-shaped stand-up bar in the center, created in the cross-aisle for which Emirates forfeited a number of business-class seats. In ads the lounge is shown bubbling with bon vivants: bearded hunks just back from jungles as wild as their souls; unattached beauties with come-hither-into-my-sliding-door-domain smiles; cosmopolitans, captains of industry and other celebrants conversing in the new disco of the skies. When I burst in at about noon, the bar is being staged, a theater set being erected by nine flight attendants assembling bottles, glasses and snacks. Soon Champagne corks are popping and fellow passengers arrive.
Do not run, I tell myself. These people aren’t angling to steal your overhead space or cut in front of you at the bathroom. These are your friends. (...)
The age of Emirates accelerated in 2008 with the introduction of its Airbus A380 flights. Since the double-decker, wide-bodied, four-engine jetliner was introduced in the early 2000s, airline executives and owners, both public and private, had dreamed of how to best maximize its mammoth space. “People were fantasizing about gyms on board and casinos, bowling alleys and swimming pools,” says Sarrabezolles. “None of that really happened with any other airlines.”
Emirates capitalized on the A380’s space with revolutionary bling. To spread the word, the airline launched highly publicized inaugural flights from several cities and held special events from New York to Los Angeles, where there was a gala dinner at the Kodak Theater. Ricky Martin performed, Hilary Swank spoke and Wolfgang Puck catered. There were advertisements in glossy international magazines, on billboards and drive-time radio. The strategy worked: CEO-level executives, American celebrities, politicians, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, the rich, royal and famous were soon reveling in the new way to fly, using Dubai as a hub to connect to the world.
“This airline is amazing,” Paris Hilton tweeted in June 2009 from her Emirates first-class suite. The tweet was estimated by one publicist to be worth $1.5 million in public relations, with $3 million more in free advertising if the message spread in the media, which of course it did. “For the first time, you could travel commercially better than you could privately in anything like a Gulfstream, which was in no way as luxurious as flying on Emirates in the first-class cabin,” says event planner Colin Cowie, who has flown 12 million miles across nearly a hundred countries and became allegiant to Emirates while producing the grand opening of the Atlantis, The Palm resort in Dubai in 2008. “To walk onto the A380 in 2008, to have a bathroom the size of an average Manhattan bathroom, your own attendant, a seven-minute shower, every amenity known to man, full-size bath towels is pretty amazing. You cannot do better on a commercial flight. It was a big game changer.”
Midway through the Dubai-London flight, the Middle Easterners in first class would change their attire to suit their destination. “You’d take off from the Middle East, and everyone would be covered in white robes or black abayas,” says Cowie. “You’d land in London ,and everyone would be in bespoke suits, high heels, tight jeans, fabulous fitted tops. It would be the exact opposite going back.”
Dr. Michael Apa, a leading New York–based cosmetic dentist, heard about Emirates at a dinner party at furrier Dennis Basso’s home in Manhattan. “I was sitting next to Ivanka Trump,” he says. “She said, ‘I just got back from Dubai, and Emirates is so great.’ But I didn’t really understand, because I didn’t think I would be going to Dubai anytime soon.” Then in 2006, members of the royal family became Apa’s patients in New York. In 2008 they flew him to visit on Emirates, which the royal family flies when they are not flying privately. “I’m sitting on that plane and I’m thinking, Wow!” says Apa, who now has an outpost of his practice in Dubai and flies Emirates often.
In the first-class cabin, Apa’s fellow passengers have included Virgin Airlines founder Richard Branson, sportscaster Bryant Gumbel, CNN anchor Richard Quest and rapper Busta Rhymes. But Emirates is as much about who you don’t see as much as who you do. “You are sleeping privately, while on other airlines you are sleeping with everyone else,” says Cowie.
Still, first and business class cannot sustain an airline. Emirates had to communicate its message to the masses. But outside of its stellar equipment and service, it did not yet know what its message was. By 2010, spurred by the explosive growth of tourism in Dubai, the airline was expanding at warp speed, ordering $13 billion in new aircraft.
“Emirates was growing probably as fast as Google,” says Scott Goodson, founder of the StrawberryFrog advertising agency in New York. “And the reason for that was the center of the world was changing. The old center of the world was Europe. Before, if you were flying from Asia to the States or Latin America, you had to fly through London or Frankfurt. But with the new 777s and the A380, the center of the world shifted to Dubai. If you worked at Facebook in California, you could fly from L.A. to Dubai, and it’s a quick hop to Mumbai. The airline realized they needed an idea that could rally both existing employees and new employees. Additionally, they needed help to make this Dubai-based airline not only relevant but admired by the world.”
I sink into the flatbed seat, which, compared with those of other international industry leaders, including Cathay Pacific and Singapore Airlines, is state-of-the-art, as is the 1,600-channel in-seat entertainment system. There’s a small minibar of soft drinks and snacks, but who wants to fetch their own drinks in business and first class? The allure of Emirates goes beyond its hardware into what aviation writer Gary Leff tells me is the “halo effect of some of the over-the-top things they do.” He calls the in-your-face features the “Emirates bling”: the two enormous spa showers in first class; the 14 first-class suites, each with a vanity table, closet, 23-inch TV screen and electronic doors that seal shut for total seclusion; the young fleet, which includes 50 A380s (already more than any other airline, with 90 more on order).The plane lifts off in a quiet purr—with 550-plus tons and 500 passengers—and soon a caravan of flight attendants, fluent in a dozen languages, is rolling down the aisles, a parade of smiles and service.
“You’re able to park things that are difficult in your life,” a woman’s voice assures me from the noise-canceling headset. “Untether yourself from your schedule.... Let all that go.”
It’s time to head to the lounge. It’s big and circular, with a horseshoe-shaped stand-up bar in the center, created in the cross-aisle for which Emirates forfeited a number of business-class seats. In ads the lounge is shown bubbling with bon vivants: bearded hunks just back from jungles as wild as their souls; unattached beauties with come-hither-into-my-sliding-door-domain smiles; cosmopolitans, captains of industry and other celebrants conversing in the new disco of the skies. When I burst in at about noon, the bar is being staged, a theater set being erected by nine flight attendants assembling bottles, glasses and snacks. Soon Champagne corks are popping and fellow passengers arrive.
Do not run, I tell myself. These people aren’t angling to steal your overhead space or cut in front of you at the bathroom. These are your friends. (...)
The age of Emirates accelerated in 2008 with the introduction of its Airbus A380 flights. Since the double-decker, wide-bodied, four-engine jetliner was introduced in the early 2000s, airline executives and owners, both public and private, had dreamed of how to best maximize its mammoth space. “People were fantasizing about gyms on board and casinos, bowling alleys and swimming pools,” says Sarrabezolles. “None of that really happened with any other airlines.”
Emirates capitalized on the A380’s space with revolutionary bling. To spread the word, the airline launched highly publicized inaugural flights from several cities and held special events from New York to Los Angeles, where there was a gala dinner at the Kodak Theater. Ricky Martin performed, Hilary Swank spoke and Wolfgang Puck catered. There were advertisements in glossy international magazines, on billboards and drive-time radio. The strategy worked: CEO-level executives, American celebrities, politicians, ultra-high-net-worth individuals, the rich, royal and famous were soon reveling in the new way to fly, using Dubai as a hub to connect to the world.
“This airline is amazing,” Paris Hilton tweeted in June 2009 from her Emirates first-class suite. The tweet was estimated by one publicist to be worth $1.5 million in public relations, with $3 million more in free advertising if the message spread in the media, which of course it did. “For the first time, you could travel commercially better than you could privately in anything like a Gulfstream, which was in no way as luxurious as flying on Emirates in the first-class cabin,” says event planner Colin Cowie, who has flown 12 million miles across nearly a hundred countries and became allegiant to Emirates while producing the grand opening of the Atlantis, The Palm resort in Dubai in 2008. “To walk onto the A380 in 2008, to have a bathroom the size of an average Manhattan bathroom, your own attendant, a seven-minute shower, every amenity known to man, full-size bath towels is pretty amazing. You cannot do better on a commercial flight. It was a big game changer.”
Midway through the Dubai-London flight, the Middle Easterners in first class would change their attire to suit their destination. “You’d take off from the Middle East, and everyone would be covered in white robes or black abayas,” says Cowie. “You’d land in London ,and everyone would be in bespoke suits, high heels, tight jeans, fabulous fitted tops. It would be the exact opposite going back.”
Dr. Michael Apa, a leading New York–based cosmetic dentist, heard about Emirates at a dinner party at furrier Dennis Basso’s home in Manhattan. “I was sitting next to Ivanka Trump,” he says. “She said, ‘I just got back from Dubai, and Emirates is so great.’ But I didn’t really understand, because I didn’t think I would be going to Dubai anytime soon.” Then in 2006, members of the royal family became Apa’s patients in New York. In 2008 they flew him to visit on Emirates, which the royal family flies when they are not flying privately. “I’m sitting on that plane and I’m thinking, Wow!” says Apa, who now has an outpost of his practice in Dubai and flies Emirates often.
In the first-class cabin, Apa’s fellow passengers have included Virgin Airlines founder Richard Branson, sportscaster Bryant Gumbel, CNN anchor Richard Quest and rapper Busta Rhymes. But Emirates is as much about who you don’t see as much as who you do. “You are sleeping privately, while on other airlines you are sleeping with everyone else,” says Cowie.
Still, first and business class cannot sustain an airline. Emirates had to communicate its message to the masses. But outside of its stellar equipment and service, it did not yet know what its message was. By 2010, spurred by the explosive growth of tourism in Dubai, the airline was expanding at warp speed, ordering $13 billion in new aircraft.
“Emirates was growing probably as fast as Google,” says Scott Goodson, founder of the StrawberryFrog advertising agency in New York. “And the reason for that was the center of the world was changing. The old center of the world was Europe. Before, if you were flying from Asia to the States or Latin America, you had to fly through London or Frankfurt. But with the new 777s and the A380, the center of the world shifted to Dubai. If you worked at Facebook in California, you could fly from L.A. to Dubai, and it’s a quick hop to Mumbai. The airline realized they needed an idea that could rally both existing employees and new employees. Additionally, they needed help to make this Dubai-based airline not only relevant but admired by the world.”
by Mark Seal, Departures | Read more:
Image: Alexander Gronsky
