Not too long ago, Flying Emirates was like the good old days of flying, where everything was taken care of if you were flying a premium cabin. Turns out Emirates is not at all fully immune to the impact of global oil prices and P&L management. While I do think they have largely been a smartly run airline, investing in a novel concept of an all long-haul fleet of A380s and B777s, the changes are coming fast and thick.

Just recently, Emirates started to offer anyone with the ability to pay for the First Class Lounge, paid access to the lounges in Dubai. Now, in a post published on air crew website, Paddleyourownkanoo, they state a list of ancillary revenue streams that are being considered. One of them stands out:

Business Class passengers paying to use the onboard shower

I’m assuming this comes at a 100$ add-on or more as well. But the showers are already there, and perhaps not used at full capacity, so why not. The others are relevant as well, and are all in all an effort focused on monetizing sunk costs:

• Chauffeur car service for economy passengers in Dubai,
• Premium meals and beverages available to order.

Now clearly, the third one is something already in the works to a small extent. You can buy champagne in Emirates economy class, and prices were raised recently. Also seafood meals are available. Emirates owns the car fleet in Dubai perhaps, and the incremental cost is fuel for them, while the incremental revenue for them would be larger.

It would be interesting to see when this plays out. I’m not at all in doubt about will it or not. It is just a matter of when. Do you agree or disagree?