Emirates First Class in 2026 – The Same Excess, Just More Refined

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Emirates First Class has never exactly been subtle. There’s the caviar, the Dom Pérignon, the private suites, the onboard bar and, on the A380, the completely unnecessary but absolutely wonderful ability to take a shower at 40,000 feet. Excess has always been part of the appeal, and it’s why I love the product!

Earlier this month, when I flew Emirates First from Cape Town to Toronto via Dubai, I wasn’t expecting to discover an entirely new product. What I found instead was something more interesting: a familiar product that had been quietly refined in a lot of small but meaningful ways, with a cumulative effect that was very noticeable. Having flown both the refreshed 777 and A380 on the same trip, I had the opportunity to see just how much Emirates First has changed.

Booking Emirates First Class in 2026

I booked Cape Town–Dubai–Toronto as a single Emirates Skywards First Class award for 178,750 Skywards miles + ZAR 20,150 per person, or roughly CAD 1,700 in taxes and carrier-imposed charges. These taxes are high, but well warranted for the coveted product. I’ve written previously on how to optimize Skywards redemptions to soften the blow of the surcharges and points in What Did You Book? – Emirates First and Etihad Guest Miles and Emirates First and La Premiere – How I Booked the Family Redemption.

The timing of my booking worked in my favour. On May 20, 2026, Emirates raised First Class Classic Reward pricing by roughly 15%, meaning the same booking would cost noticeably more today. The bigger change, however, is who can book First Class using miles, which is becoming increasingly restrictive. As of writing in August 2026, Emirates has restricted First Class awards to Skywards Silver members and above, so you can no longer simply transfer points into Skywards and expect to book your way into First Class.

Aeroplan has followed a similar path, introducing a minimum Aeroplan 35K status requirement to book Emirates First Class. Both programs also restrict First Class awards to passengers aged 9 and older, although paid First Class tickets are unaffected. I was able to book my First Class Award as a Skywards Gold member, achieved via holding the Barclays Emirates credit card.

The direction Emirates is taking is pretty clear: it isn’t just charging more miles for First Class; it is deliberately narrowing who can get in.

A Refresh, Not a Reinvention

My trip started in Cape Town on EK773, departing at 1:15 p.m. for the 9-hour flight to Dubai, before continuing on EK241 to Toronto. Both aircraft had been through Emirates’ massive fleet-wide retrofit programme.

Over the past two years, Emirates has been quietly reworking almost every part of the First Class experience without really touching its core. The seats are familiar, but nearly everything around them has been refreshed. None of the changes is particularly dramatic on its own, but put them together and the difference is surprisingly noticeable.

The 777 I flew wasn’t fitted with the much-hyped six-seat “Game Changer” cabin, but rather the refreshed version of Emirates’ more familiar eight-suite First Class product, finished in the newer cream-coloured interior instead of the older grey design many people still associate with the 777. Emirates has been flying this refreshed configuration to Cape Town since September 2025, and the A380 has received the same broader treatment.

The cabin refresh goes well beyond a simple colour swap. On both aircraft, the old gold and darker wood tones have given way to cream leather and lighter finishes, while the suite walls and doors are taller and HDMI connectivity has been added alongside the usual power and USB outlets. Both cabins also felt quieter than I remembered, with added insulation in the suite walls. Emirates actually states the cabins are 25% more spacious, which I believe is the increase in volume coming from the added height.

One particularly nice thing about the 777 is that there are no overhead bins in First Class, which makes the cabin feel incredibly tall and open. Once the mood lighting comes on at night, it looks fantastic. The refreshed finishes, taller suite walls, and lighter colour palette also give the cabin a much more modern feel than before.

What the refresh doesn’t touch is the seat itself. The refreshed 777 still carries 8 First Class suites and the A380 still carries 14, both in the same 1-2-1 layouts Emirates introduced in 2008. They’ve been refinished rather than replaced. Emirates has also been steadily expanding these refreshed aircraft across its network, including Cape Town. The map below gives a sense of just how widely the refreshed fleet had spread by the end of 2025.

Luxury Is in the Details

In May 2025, Emirates started rolling out a number of smaller First Class enhancements, including redesigned menus, gloved service, a new cheeseboard and Emirates-engraved Robert Welch bowls for its unlimited caviar service. None of these changes sound particularly dramatic on their own, but they’re much more noticeable when you experience them together.

Caviar on Emirates is hardly anything new, but the new presentation is beautiful and feels much more deliberate. It is less about simply serving something expensive (and unlimited) and more about turning it into an experience.

The new crystal-cut glassware also stood out to me more than I expected. It’s exactly the sort of change that may sound over the top, but is noticeable when you’re actually sitting there using it, slowly sipping away at the USD $1,500 bottle of Hennessy Paradis.

Add in the Dom Pérignon Rosé 2009, which Emirates began serving on flights in 2025, and the whole dining experience feels just a little more polished. Special bottles of Dom increasingly feel like part of the Emirates First Class identity rather than an occasional treat.

Even the menu has become part of the experience. Emirates redesigned it as more of a keepsake, with pages that tell the story behind its wine selection and culinary inspirations. Rather than simply listing what’s being poured, it goes into the heritage of some of the rarer bottles, with tasting notes and suggested pairings. It’s a small change, but it makes the dining experience feel more considered before the food even arrives.

The sleepwear was probably the upgrade I appreciated most. I never really enjoyed the older First Class pyjamas because I found them too warm to comfortably sleep in. The new modal set is lighter and more breathable, and feels much more in line with the newer sleepwear Emirates introduced in Business Class. The slippers are noticeably better too.

Emirates followed that with upgraded bedding in 2026, including new pillows, duvet covers and 300-thread-count cotton bedding, along with a more elaborate turndown that now includes BYREDO chamomile pillow mist and a chocolate on the bed. The mattress also felt better than I remembered, although I can’t say with certainty whether that was part of the upgrade or simply a fresher mattress.

I also received the new Bulgari amenity kits across the two flights, including both the men’s and women’s versions. The bags are handsome, and the 30ml fragrance bottles feel remarkably generous compared with the tiny samples most airlines hand out. More interestingly, this is already the 18th generation of Bulgari kits Emirates has produced over a partnership stretching back more than sixteen years. There’s something slightly amusing about Emirates redesigning the amenity kit 18 times while the First Class seat has remained largely unchanged, a fitting summary of Emirates First Class in 2026: familiar ingredients, continuously refined.

Perhaps the most meaningful upgrade is also the least glamorous: Wi-Fi. Emirates began fitting Starlink to its 777s in November 2025 and its A380s from early 2026, and both of my aircraft had it. It was extraordinary! After using it, this is the standard every long-haul airline should be aiming for. On a 14-hour flight, fast and reliable connectivity can be a far more meaningful luxury than another designer amenity kit.

One last improvement worth mentioning is the new Bowers & Wilkins E2 headphones. They offer better noise cancellation along with a transparency mode that lets you hear the crew without having to take them off.

First Class on the Ground

We landed in Dubai at 12:35 a.m., leaving just under 3 hours before EK241 to Toronto. That’s not a tight connection by any means, but it is tight enough when you want to freshen up, have something to eat in the First Class Lounge and still make it to the gate without rushing. We were met at the aircraft by Emirates staff and escorted to the lounge, which required changing concourses. An escort might sound a little unnecessary, but it’s actually quite useful as you don’t have to think about where you’re going, you’re taken through any available fast lanes during security re-clearance, and in our case, part of the journey involved a buggy ride through the terminal.

At 1 a.m., after a 9-hour flight, not having to think about where you’re going is a luxury in itself.

Once in the lounge, I followed my usual First Class Lounge tradition of indulging in the Dahi Wada, followed by the tres leches cake. I also stopped by the Skywards desk to collect my Gold luggage tag on the way through.

Emirates has also been investing in the First Class experience on the ground. Its new Emirates First check-in facility opened at Terminal 3 in July 2025, creating a private, lounge-like space where First Class passengers and Skywards Platinum members can complete check-in while seated. I experienced it on a previous trip last year and found it to be a noticeable improvement over the traditional First Class check-in counters. On this particular trip, I was connecting, so check-in wasn’t part of the experience.

Emirates is also refreshing its lounges in Dubai, with the First Class Lounge in Concourse C currently undergoing a full refurbishment. It fits the broader pattern perfectly: Emirates isn’t reinventing First Class on the ground either, it’s refining it.

The A380 Is Still the Complete Experience

As much as I enjoyed the refreshed 777, the A380 remains my preferred way to fly Emirates First, partly due to the aircraft itself and partly because the A380 lets Emirates be Emirates in a way nothing else in the fleet quite does.

Two things in particular make the A380 experience unique: the Shower Spa and the onboard bar. The bar, officially called the Onboard Lounge, isn’t exclusive to First Class, as Business Class passengers also have access, but it remains a major part of the overall A380 experience. It has also received a refreshed treatment, with the newer design bringing lighter finishes, ambient lighting, and bronze and woodgrain accents that better match the updated cabins.

Then there’s the Shower Spa, which is exclusive to First Class and is still one of the most wonderfully unnecessary features in commercial aviation. Even that has been refreshed, with updated displays and Emirates’ new VOYA products joining the lighter finishes introduced through the A380 retrofit.

I took my shower somewhere over the Atlantic and, honestly, the experience was exactly as I remembered it: same shower, same 5 minutes of water, same slightly ridiculous pleasure of doing it at all. Which is really the point. Emirates didn’t need to reinvent the shower; it just needed to keep refining the experience around it.

Are a refreshed bar and new shower products reasons on their own to book Emirates First Class? Of course not. But they’re part of what makes the A380 special, and the A380 remains deeply embedded in Emirates’ DNA.

When the Service Matches the Product

Emirates First Class service has been inconsistent for me over the years, and I have a fairly large sample size to draw from: 33 Emirates First flights since 2021, to be exact. I’ve had superb crews, but I’ve also had flights where the service simply didn’t come close to matching the hardware or the price.

On this trip, both crews were exceptional, and I suspect that’s what made all of these smaller improvements register as much as they did and ultimately why I felt this article was worth writing. A beautiful caviar bowl doesn’t create luxury if the service around it isn’t right. Better bedding doesn’t mean much if the turndown is sloppy. Crystal glassware is ultimately just glassware if the whole experience feels transactional.

At this level, I expect the experience to be as close to perfect as possible. For me, that means a crew that anticipates what you need before you have to ask. On both my flights,  Emirates delivered exactly that.

What Comes Next for Emirates First Class?

Emirates is still refining a First Class product whose basic design dates back to 2008, even as almost everything around it has been updated. That won’t be the case forever. Emirates President Tim Clark confirmed in 2025 that the airline is working on an entirely new A380 First Class suite, with fully enclosed suites inspired by the Game Changer product. There’s still no firm timeline, but it gives us a pretty good idea of where Emirates wants to take First Class next.

For now, Emirates is essentially giving an older First Class seat a very expensive new wardrobe.

Final Thoughts

So what’s actually new about Emirates First Class? Almost everything, and almost nothing. The formula is unchanged: private suites, unlimited caviar, Dom Pérignon, and a shower in the sky if you’re on the A380. What has changed is almost everything around it. The cabins feel fresher, the pyjamas and slippers are better, the bedding is better, the caviar presentation is better, the glassware is better, the headphones are better, the shower products are better, and the Wi-Fi is on another level.

At the same time, Emirates First Class has become more expensive and more difficult to book with miles. Between higher award pricing, elite-status requirements and new age restrictions, Emirates is clearly becoming more selective about who gets access to the cabin. After nearly 24 hours travelling from Cape Town to Toronto across both the 777 and A380, I’m not convinced First Class needed a revolution anyway. Sometimes the difference between a great First Class product and an exceptional one comes down to getting all the little things right. On this trip, Emirates did exactly that.