Has Emirates Secretly Leaked Their New 777 First Class Configuration?

In 2016, Dubai-based carrier Emirates announced that they would be updating their 777 and A380 First Class products. The products are expected to be announced sometime in the next few weeks/months and the airline said that they would be onboard select aircraft by the end of 2017.

I’ve flown the A380 First Class product quite a few times now and always enjoyed it, but it’ll be nice to see a refreshed and modern version of it and the 777’s soon.

Emirates First Class

Anyway, tonight I came across a forum on Flyertalk that caught my eye. Member m3red shared a photo of a 777-300ER seat map indicating the new First Class suites and their configuration. At first, I assumed Expertflyer had made some type of mistake so I investigated it online and found the exact seat map through various sources.

m3red mentioned that the seat maps appear on EK229 from Dubai to Seattle from December 1st onwards. The supposed new seat map is below on Expertflyer:

I decided to also check an OTA to see if that would also show the different seat map and low and behold, Orbitz did, in fact, show the different seating:

Now, this is definitely quite odd and different to what’s currently found on Emirates’s 777’s. They currently feature 8 suites in a 1-2-1 configuration. Here’s an example below:

This ‘could’ be Emirates’ new First Class configuration but the E seat in row 2 is in a weird spot. It’s also strange that Emirates haven’t yet even officially announced what the product will look like or how it will be configured. Emirates wouldn’t be the first airline to have 1-1-1 in a 77W, Cathay First has 6 seats in a 1-1-1 config.

Emirates are supposed to be announcing the products soon but who knows if that will actually happen soon. If this is, in fact, true, it’s quite an interesting configuration and I’d have to see the product in person to see what I think of it.

Could this actually be Emirates’s new 777 First suites or just a seating map issue?