Emirates

What a relief to change from Qantas to Emirates on our flight from Dubai to Brisbane. Seats in Row 57F/G chosen and were comfortable. The cabin crew were friendly and efficient and treated people like people. Meals were excellent and the gluten free options were the best my partner has had on a flight with one exception. A snack (pizza) was served late at night but there was no gluten free snack. The crew asked if fruit or something else could be provided. Flight was on time. After flying with Qantas for 20+ years I'm switching to Emirates.

Manchester to Doha via Dubai return with Emirates. We arrived at the airport to find that the plane had been changed and our seats that we had carefully selected had been changed - with us scattered all over the place. This is not just an inconvenience but made worse when you are travelling with children - other cheaper airlines have noticed that we are travelling with children and have made sure we are seated together even when we have not paid extra for this (like Thomas Cook). The ground staff managed to find us seats together in the end but much further back in the plane. To make it worse they did the same thing on the way home on our Doha to Dubai flight. This time I checked just before we left and rang them - they could only seat 4 of us together and the rest were scattered. When I got home I emailed them to complain and after a long time got a reply to say that this is just how it is. I expected better for a company that sells itself as having good service and are so expensive. Its a sad day when I get better service from a holiday company chartered flight compared to Emirates. After all the messing about spoiled the flight - this is one of the best parts of the holiday for my family. If a family aren't seated together it doesn't matter what film you show or food you give.

Great service, food and cabin atmosphere. The only issue with this flight was that my seat wouldn't recline properly and the staff couldn't resolve the issue. Disappointing but still an enjoyable flight. The lounge food in Sydney was superb, as was the drink selection. I am a gold member with Emirates and endorse their products, just too bad that they teamed up with Qantas as a codeshare partner.

Jakarta to Paris via Dubai with Boeing 777 from Jakarta to Dubai and A380 from Dubai to Paris. I was impressed with the cabin interior. The seat color was calm yet it still gave something confident. Before take-off, the flight attendants gave the menu to all passengers. Jakarta-Dubai flight was served with two meals. I was surprised with the flight attendant that has different languages, 18 in total, this would be very helpful with the passenger who couldn’t speak English very fluently. The meal for me was standard, as I could find a meal better in other airlines. I hope I could get better meal in my next flight to Paris since I thought the flight would use A380, but it was still the same. The flight attendant seemed so hurried in serving the meals. The meal to Paris was served a bit later until dinner time, and I was like starving since they didn’t give us more snack. The best thing in the flight was the IFE. And it also had the camera that was very interactive.

Flying back to Jakarta from Amsterdam via Dubai. The flight from Amsterdam was more or less the same as the flight from Dubai to Paris with A380. But the flight attendant from Amsterdam to Dubai was a bit unprofessional. I asked to have my headset replaced, but it didn’t come until I asked another FA. During meal time, I saw an old couple not get the meal. When everyone had half of his meal, they still don’t get the meal. IFE was good during the whole flight. The flight Dubai to Jakarta (Boeing 777) was not as good as I had thought. For almost 1/3 of the journey I could not sleep on my seat. The fleet was different when I flew from Jakarta to Dubai before. This flight looked old. The IFE screen even made me not want to watch. The legroom was also a bit narrow.

Dusseldorf to Bangkok via Dubai with Emirates. Excellent service provided. Ground staff in DUS a bit slow, would recommend no online check in since only one counter for the whole group of online check in's. Boeing 777 a bit old, but motivated and friendly staff. A380 turns out to be the first plane I can even sit in a middle seat and actually sleep. Not extremely good but at least I can place my legs somewhere.

Emirates from Durban to Auckland via Dubai and Brisbane. The first flight from Durban to Dubai I cannot fault. Comfy seats, where I requested to be sat online. Great onboard entertainment, clean and really friendly, positive staff. Food was delicious and plenty to drink. My flight from Dubai to Brisbane was not so great. Second lot of security before getting on the plane that wouldn't allow me to take my water bottle that I had brought at the departure gate. Not in the seat I had allocated online for. Admittedly the rest of my negative experience I can't blame Emirates for. But I do think they should get rid of the ability to put the seat so far back. I basically had the guy in front on my lap the whole way, and I was trying to sleep by leaning on the fold up tray, when he forced his seat right back - it resulted in a limb on my head and a cricked neck. This was then followed by screaming kids for most of the 14hr flight. However due to lack of being able to sleep the aircraft did have brilliant inflight entertainment. Particularly enjoyed the cameras mounted out side the plane that you can watch.

London to Kuala Lumpur via Dubai with Emirates. Inflight entertainment was wonderful with many selections to choose from. Food was rather okay too, considering I ordered a gluten free meal. The seat was hard to sleep in and the cabin was sometimes too cold. I needed to use a couple of blankets on these flights as it was just too cold. Service was below average. Asked for orange juice and water twice from two different cabin crew, but it never showed up. I had to go to the galley myself to take the drinks because no one attended to my call.

New York JFK to Milan. I've flown the Emirates A380 on short haul flights from BKK to HKG in First Class which is a noticeable improvement over the Business Class product. As many write, there are a number of seats in the Business Class cabin that are much worse than others. I did my homework before selecting the outbound seats. Per recommendation (traveling with a significant other), I picked seats 20 E/F that had the mini bar on the aisle, which allows you to sit closer to your friend/partner/spouse. The problem with these is that our middle armrests were so small and narrow that really only one of us could use it at a time. On our flight back to New York we opted to sit apart and chose seats 18K and 20K. These seats have the mini bar on the aisle, and you do have a nice more private experience. The huge plus of these seats is that you get lots of storage space next to your seat under the windows that is nonexistent in the other middle seat configurations (E/F and D/G). This allows you to put away your laptop bag, blanket etc, without getting up into the overhead bins during flight. This would also be the case for the "A" seats on the other side of the plane. We found these much more comfortable and didn't mind sitting apart for the flight. The flight attendants are very hit or miss with Emirates. On our outbound JFK-Milan flight, most were pretty bad. Not particularly helpful or available. They disappear after the very rushed dinner service. On our return flight the good FAs outnumbered the bad. The thing that agitated the most on both flights is the disregard that the attendants have for being quiet. They love to congregate and talk loudly between sections behind row 21. As well, they seemed to always getting into the overhead bins and slamming them shut. This woke me us several times. The other thing that I disliked is that the restrooms are next to the galley in the back of the Business class cabin in such a way that it almost seemed unsanitary and without privacy. You have the toilets between the lounge/bar with uncovered food, and the galley where they are preparing food. With no curtain separating the toilet section from the galley section, you have a bunch of FAs standing around on one side and guests in the bar area on the other that you must walk through to get to and from the toilet. We found the food offering pretty subpar for a business class product. The beverage service and offering was above average.

Sydney to Bangkok with Emirates. I was unhappy with the Check-In staff member who mistakenly added the weight of my carry-on cabin bag to my Checked luggage, requiring me to repack my bags, but when I eventually got back to (different) check-in desk my checked luggage was well under the 30kgs allowed, so I ended up checking both bags and carrying the plastic bag that I was going to post as my carry-on. The difference between the two service staff was marked - this is the second time this has happened. The meals on Emirates in Economy have deteriorated in the last year or so, probably because Emirates operates a codeshare arrangement with Qantas on this route, so they are maybe catering to Qantas customers. The cabin staff are very professional and helpful, The beer on board is supermarket class offering a Dutch and USA option with a Dutch light alternative rather than options from Oceania or Asia which I would prefer, still the staff offer options rather than just what is close to hand. The wine is quite reasonable given it is cool and drunk at altitude. The in-flight entertainment is superior unless the person in front insists on fully reclining their seat even during meals which makes viewing the screen extremely unpleasant, but this is probably more a reflection on the type of passenger Emirates attracts with their code share arrangement with Qantas than on the actual seat.