Your Chance to Get Naked on an A380 May Be Threatened

One of the craziest things you can do—at least legally—at 35,000 feet is to strip down to your birthday suit and take an in-flight shower. We’re not talking about a quick refresh in the airplane lavatory with a first class amenity kit, but we actually mean hot water, soap, and shampoo while on an airplane. Right now it’s only available to first class flyers aboard Emirates' A380 flights, but if Emirates gets their way there might just be a few less in-flight showers moving forward.

It sounds like Emirates is considering what a lot of carriers have already done, and shifting some of their planes to just a two-class configuration. That means just business and economy, no first class. The plan is to cram more seats into the oversized airplane, and more seats means more money. We’re hardly airline industry economists, but it’s pretty clear how this new move would benefit Emirates in a good way.


The new updated seating plan would enter service in 2016, but the exact number of seats hasn’t been determined as of yet. Reports indicate that the upstairs bar would remain, but we’re not exactly sure what—if anything—would happen to the in-flight showers. Emirates is also looking at just offering up two classes on some of their Boeing 777s, but at the very least they’ll likely shave the total first class seats from eight down to four.

The report from Air Transport World only indicates that the latest A380 will be a “two-class configuration variant,” so we’re kind of thinking that some of the normal, shower-equipped A380 options will still be flying for quite some time.

So if your piggy bank is still a few dirhams short of a first class ticket—you know ours is—there’s still time to save a few more for that first class seat and in-flight shower.