Emirates launches new hospitality strategy

Emirates, renowned for its award-winning products and services, is launching a new hospitality-based strategy which it says will take the customer experiences that its teams deliver on ground and in the air, to new heights.

The programme will be one of the biggest people, process, and product initiatives ever implemented at the airline, touching all front-line customer facing teams as well as supporting departments.

Adel Al Redha, Chief Operating Officer at Emirates said: “Even while managing the immediate challenges of the pandemic during the past two years, Emirates did not hesitate to keep driving forward initiatives to ensure our customers keep “flying better” for the foreseeable future.

“Emirates already has a signature service that our customers value and makes us unique. What we’re doing through our new hospitality strategy, is providing our teams with even more bandwidth and skills to build stronger, more personalised, and relevant connections with our customers at every moment of their journey with us. We’ll achieve that by investing in technologies, refining elements of our processes, and empowering our people to be our most effective and real brand ambassadors.”

Al Redha added: “The learning programme for our new hospitality strategy will be rolled out starting from June, and refresher courses in the programme will continue to ensure the consistency of our customer experience.”

With expert support from Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), consistently rated amongst the world’s top hospitality management schools, Emirates is creating its next generation hospitality programme based on bespoke principles that reflect its unique DNA. At its foundation are the principles of simplicity, excellence, innovation, and most importantly, passion.

The programme aims to drive consistency across all touchpoints and provide a framework for teams to deliver signature moments that evoke emotions and create positive memories and feelings for Emirates’ customers.

Emirates has already incorporated elements of its new hospitality principles into its soon-to-launch Premium Economy service, as its cabin crew learn how to deliver Emirates’ latest inflight experience from food presentation and offering of welcome drinks, to complimentary amenities and other little touches. Earlier this week, the airline announced that it will offer its full-service Premium Economy experience for sale in June, for customers flying on select routes starting from 01 August 2022.

Committed to investing in its people, the first batch of Emirates facilitators have already earned their EHL Qualified Learning Facilitator Certification after completing an intensive 2-week programme between Dubai and EHL’s main campus in Lausanne earlier this year. They will be part of the core team involved in deploying the airline’s hospitality learning experience initiatives starting from June.

The airline is setting up an internal Emirates Hospitality Centre of Excellence to engage and co-ordinate the roll-out of the programme across the diverse teams at Emirates involved in delivering customer experiences – including cabin crew, airport services employees, contact centre teams, catering, inflight products, training, recruitment, sales and marketing, and more.