Skift Travel News Blog

Emirates has expanded its inflight meal pre-order initiative across Europe, following the successful launch of the initiative on London to Dubair routes and the positive feedback received from passengers.

The inflight pre-ordering service is available to Business Class passengers, and allows them to reserve their main course up to 24 hours prior to their departure through the Emirates website and app. Onboard the aircraft, cabin crew will then use digital devices to view customer preorders.

According to a release from Emirates, the new initiative forms part of an existing suite of AI-enabled customer preference tracking data and cabin crew reports onboard Emirates, which ‘facilitate menu planning, optimal food loading and waste minimization’.

Emirates joins a growing list of airlines developing initiatives that are designed to minimize food wastage and enhance the customer experience, including Virgin Atlantic, United and Lufthansa, among others.

After Hollywood celebrities Jennifer Anniston and Chris Hemsworth, Gerry the Goose is winging it as the newest brand ambassador for Dubai-based carrier Emirates. The brand campaign featuring Gerry, a Canadian goose, will run in 25 countries for one month, starting August 30.

As part of its ‘Fly Better’ campaign, Emirates said it “is inviting customers to take a gander at the benefits and services of the airline.”

Created through computer-generated imagery, Gerry the Goose is shown onboard an Emirates flight enjoying the finer things in life while watching “The Goose (enough of the puns, already!), The Bad and The Ugly.” Right outside the plane window, his tired friends are shown make their “monumental journey” through wind and rain from one continent to the other.

As Gerry remarks, “If you’re going to fly, you may as well fly better.”

“In terms of the qualities and profile we look for in our brand ambassadors — we are spreading our wings,” said Richard Billington, senior vice president of marketing and brand at Emirates. 

Earlier this month, Emirates announced that it would be investing over $2 billion to enhance its inflight customer experience, including a massive programme to retrofit over 120 aircraft with the latest interiors, plus an array of other service improvements across all cabins.

Through the pandemic we’ve continued to launch new services and initiatives to ensure our customers travel with the assurance and ease, including digital initiatives to improve customer experiences on the ground, said Tim Clark, president of Emirates. “Now we’re rolling out a series of intensive programmes to take Emirates’ signature inflight experiences to the next level.”

For the eleventh consecutive year, Emirates also returns as the official airline of the ongoing US Open Tennis Championships.

Emirates has been building up connectivity in response to growing customer demand on the back of rising travel confidence and the easing of international travel protocols. In an earlier forecast Clark had said that the airline would return to profitability by next year.