Photo Credit: WAM
Dubai, UAE — July 2026 — Emirates has reached a landmark milestone in its fleet-wide retrofit programme, completing comprehensive cabin overhauls on 100 aircraft, a feat the airline says represents the largest known retrofit undertaking by any carrier in the world.
Since work began in November 2022, engineers at the Emirates Engineering Centre in Dubai have fully retrofitted 47 Airbus A380s and 53 Boeing 777s, reworking cabins across every class of travel on the airline’s widebody fleet.
Around 20 more aircraft are scheduled to be upgraded by the end of December 2026, which will bring the programme past the halfway mark. Emirates has committed $5 billion to the initiative, aimed at elevating its onboard products and delivering a consistently premium travel experience for its passengers.
A “landmark achievement” in aviation
Sir Tim Clark, president of Emirates Airline, said the retrofit programme reflects the carrier’s ongoing commitment to offering the best products across every cabin. He noted that completing full cabin refurbishments on 100 widebody aircraft within 44 months marks a landmark achievement in the aviation industry, and that the $5 billion investment is designed to ensure passengers enjoy an elevated travel experience defined by luxury, comfort, and meticulous attention to detail in every cabin.
Clark added that executing a project of this scale and complexity in-house in Dubai demanded precise planning, exceptional craftsmanship, and unmatched technical capability. He said the team had to rethink the retrofit approach for the two largest passenger aircraft types in commercial aviation, ensuring each plane returned to service on schedule and in pristine condition.
By the numbers
Over the course of 44 months, a team of more than 400 engineers and technicians at the Emirates Engineering Centre logged a combined 4.4 million work hours to retrofit the 100 aircraft. The work included advanced upgrades across all cabin classes and the introduction of a new Premium Economy cabin, with more than 3,800 new Premium Economy seats installed across the retrofitted jets, helping accelerate the rollout of the increasingly popular cabin class to more destinations across Emirates’ network.
Since the project’s launch in November 2022, the Engineering Centre team has retrofitted an average of 28 aircraft per year.
The retrofit process involved highly complex engineering and technical work, including a complete strip-down of each aircraft’s interior, a full refurbishment of every cabin using more than 4,000 individual parts for each A380 and over 2,500 parts for each Boeing 777, and the precise reassembly of all interior components and fittings.
What’s next
With roughly 20 aircraft remaining to reach the programme’s halfway point by the end of 2026, Emirates’ engineering teams continue work on the remainder of its retrofit schedule, part of the airline’s broader push to standardise a premium, next-generation cabin experience across its widebody fleet.
