The Emirates airline is introducing new services and products to make the travel experience more accessible for people with disabilities. The launches include onboard sensory products and fidget toys for children and adults; process enhancements across the inflight experience; improved on-ground features in its Dubai hub, and an Accessible & Inclusive Travel Hub that provides useful travel information. Several other accessibility concepts are currently in development at Emirates.
Accessible & Inclusive Travel Hub
The Accessible & Inclusive Travel Hub, available on the Emirates website, provides information to facilitate accessible and inclusive travel, delivered with accessibility-friendly navigation that allows customers to find information easily and explore the ways that Emirates can provide travel assistance and support.
The hub is the result of a year of development work, with the aim of reducing the anxiety that many people with disabilities experience before travelling. The hub has a seamless visual style and user-friendly navigation options. The website is built on a token-based architecture to enable seamless updates and simplified customisation. Even the colour palette used has been tested for contrast compliance to enhance clarity and readability, and tested with assistive technologies such as screen readers, voice control, and keyboard navigation.
Customers can view and explore the sections that address various disabilities, including Mobility Assistance, Visual Impairment, Hearing Impairment and Hidden Disabilities.
If they prefer, customers can search by looking at specific parts of their journey: Before Your Flight, Departure From Dubai, Onboard Your Flight, Connecting in Dubai, and Arriving in Dubai.
A third option allows customers to browse by specific needs, including booking special assistance, an autism-friendly guide to preparing for travel, maps and sensory guides for Dubai Airport (DXB), a ‘Be My Eyes’ support app for the visually impaired, help with applying for a Sanad tourist card to access services in Dubai, and more.
There are also dedicated sections providing advice on travelling with a wheelchair and mobility aids, and detailed information on medical travel options, such as how to apply for a Frequent Traveller Medical Card (FREMEC) for customers who have medical conditions or are travelling with medications and medical devices.
The hub also features a section on family travel, with information to help those travelling with children, travelling during pregnancy, and how to arrange travel for unaccompanied minors.
Sensory products & fidget toys
Emirates has designed a range of sensory products and fidget toys for customers of all ages, which will be available onboard in all cabin classes from 1st November 2025. Sensory products and fidget toys can offer controlled stimulation for neurodivergent minds, allowing an overstimulated system to calm down and rebalance.
The products include a tactile stress reliever in the shape of an aircraft, two types of fidget cube, and a branded aircraft rubber popper. The items will be given to passengers who are neurodiverse, anyone who is struggling onboard, and even to nervous flyers, if appropriate.
New mattresses to minimise disruption
Emirates has introduced a new ‘mattress hood’ in Business Class, which attaches the mattress more firmly to the seat, in a similar way to a fitted sheet. As the mattress is more secure on the seat, it no longer needs to be collected by cabin crew before landing. This will be an improvement for customers with severe mobility disabilities who prefer not to be moved during flight. Emirates says the mattress hood has been approved as an exception from a safety perspective for take-off and landing.
New accessibility features for inflight entertainment
Emirates’ ‘Ice’ inflight entertainment (IFE) system now offers over 600 movies with closed captions and 200 movies with audio description, offering accessibility to customers with visual impairments. Emirates’ headphones are also compatible with hearing aids when set to the ‘T’ position. To alleviate anxiety or enhance relaxation, there are 12 channels of Wellbeing TV and 31 channels of Happiness and Wellbeing podcasts and playlists, including meditations and soothing sounds.
Onboard Emirates latest aircraft, the Airbus A350-900, a new user interface has been designed for Ice in partnership with Thales and advocacy groups for customers with visual impairment. This interface imparts best-practice experiences for customers who are blind or have low vision, including audio-cue navigation assistance, voice metadata feedback, and touch and swipe gesturing support. The A350 IFE system has presents the large selection of audio-descriptive (AD) content in the Emirates fleet.
Improved barrier-free access and biometrics in Dubai
In Emirates’ hub of Terminal 3 at Dubai International (DXB), a smart corridor with a barrier-free design and biometrics allows for smooth, independent movement for passengers with disabilities. The area now features flexible camera coverage, meaning that the cameras can self-adjust to heights and angles without restricting or dictating the movement of wheelchair users or people with mobility issues.
The Emirates self-service check in kiosks have also been upgraded, with text-to-speech functionality, improved touchscreen usability, braille and tactile features, a headphone jack, and the ability to self-adjust to accommodate the customers’ height.
Accessible chauffeur services
Emirates is also bringing in an Emirates-branded wheelchair-accessible vehicle, which is the prototype for a planned fleet of 10 vehicles, to be introduced by early 2026. The Chauffeur Drive vehicle is a Mercedes-Benz V250 van with an electric wheelchair lift and ramp. The lift is a powered device which is designed to extend and lower onto ground level to safely raise the customer and their wheelchair into the vehicle, when they will then be secured using additional safety restraints.
Emirates’ chauffeur drivers are currently being trained in mobility assistance and to support customers with disabilities. Currently, the wheelchair-accessible vehicle is used for First and Business Class customers availing of chauffeur drive services based in Dubai, with plans to extend its availability in the future.
Research & Innovation: More initiatives for accessible travel
Emirates has plans to introduce more accessibility measures. The team has already produced several prototypes designed to benefit customers with accessibility requirements. One of the innovations that Emirates is exploring is a collaboration with Airbus, to make the cabin more accessible.
A new technology will facilitate independent travel for passengers who are blind or have low vision, using discreetly placed QR codes that can link to the customers’ phone and provide an audio description of the cabin and haptics to locate essential functions such as seat rows, lavatories, emergency exits and digital menus.
