Emirates

✅ Trip Verified | Flew Amsterdam to Dubai. Emirates has some of the laziest cabin crew in the industry. The quality of their service has been tanking for years now and whereas small details used to set a new standard, most of these details are no longer offered. I have flown Emirates many times and somehow they never manage to leave on time - and rarely do they make up for lost time. This flight for example landed 40 minutes past schedule. When you leave later and spend more time on board, details start to matter. Like for example how long it takes before meals are served. But even as important as when the meal trays are collected. The first they try to stall for obvious reasons, they used to serve 2 meals on these flights and now 1 and some crackers. The later they serve it, the less obvious the difference. The second causes unnecessary annoyance. When you’re in a window seat and have to wait for 1 hour and 40 minutes for them to clear the trays - and you have to use the toilet - you’re going to start having doubts about their service. Their crew are more occupied getting to know each other and sharing party stories than being involved in the service they should offer. In the absence of alternatives like Qatar Airways, you’re almost forced to fly Emirates to most of the Middle East, which is another annoyance. I am starting to give up hope the Emirates of the 2008-2013 era will ever return. They have become a very ordinary airline with nothing special to offer except a large screen (which I don’t even use because I prefer to sleep).

✅ Trip Verified | Flew Johannesburg to Beijing via Dubai with Emirates. Very disappointing! No coffee was served. I asked 3 times for a cup of coffee but didn't get it. The 'breakfast' consisted of frozen pieces of fruit which had been too cold to eat for someone who has got senstive teeth. The croissant was dry and nothing to swallow it down. Only tea was served. I don't drink tea.

✅ Trip Verified | Flew Phnom Penh to Yangon. Excellent in all respects. In particular, the plane appeared very new/clean, and the IFE was outstanding - large size screen with excellent choice. You could even watch live Premier League games. All cabin crew were extremely friendly and obliging, clearly taking pride in their jobs. The only negative was the price, Emirates had significantly raised the price of the flight from a few weeks earlier, when I previously took the same flight.

✅ Trip Verified | Athens to Newark. Overall good, but nothing really special. I was excited to book this flight, it was my first time flying on an Emirates flight and I couldn't wait. Everything was good, in terms of food, comfort, service etc, I found cool the Amenities Kit, but the expectations were so high, I wouldn't say I am fully satisfied. On top, it's great it's a direct flight from Athens, but you land to Newark, not JFK, and it's a bit tricky to reach NYC very late at night.

✅ Trip Verified | Flew Emirates from New York JFK to Milan. The flight itself was good, but! This is a big but! They do not call groups, they form lines like cattle and make you wait! In my case 40 minutes standing in very warm conditions, 10 minutes late. I am extremely unhappy with their boarding process, horrible.

✅ Trip Verified | Dubai to Rome. I'm so disappointed. I have been flying with EK since 2002 and in the last 3 years i have seen a constant decline. It has now hit the bottom. Travelling to Rome has been a disaster from the start. At online check in, i could not find seats next to my 9 year old son. I couldn't book his seat without paying extra 50$ (my seat was free because of skywards) on top of the 900$ premium cost of the ticket itself (seriously this is what you claim in your radio ads favouring families). Called the call center. First time i was told there are no seats available (yet the app shows seats on rows 22, 23, 36 and 50). The second time I was told these seats are not eligible for children (seriously? bassinet seats not eligible?) and third time i was asked for 90$ to change my seats. Bottom line, no longer worth the premium paid. It used to be worth every cent extra, now even FlyDubai offers a better service (and you dont even pay for seats at check in!) Sad, demise of EK myth.

✅ Trip Verified | Chicago to Chennai via Dubai. I really had a very bad experience with Emirates. I didn't know that number of bags reduced from 4 to 3 and the front desk people asked me to arrange bags and charged me 10lb extra weight fee of $50 and verified my cabin bag weight(8kg). After cleared the security, I bought some duty free stuffs from Chicago ORD airport and there is no question in Chicago airport boarding.After I reached Dubai when I board Chennai Airport Emirates staff asked me to weight cabin bag and duty free stuff and they said everything has to be placed in the cabin bag. They kicked out me out of the queue and asked me to arrange my luggage. I spent 10-15 minutes to arrange everything. After arranging every stuffs they said my cabin is overweight (includes duty free stuff). They suggested to reduce weight by throwing some stuff in trash or return duty free stuffs. Since the duty free stuffs I bought from US I couldn't able to return and they said I need to pay fee then only they can let me in. Staff behavior is totally not unacceptable, Emirates staffs are trying to steal money from customers my saying you have addition weight on your luggage. Staffs didn't say anything about the price detail and they charged me USD120 which more than the dutyfree stuff/10lb extra weight. Finally I saw my card was Charged $120 for $80 dollar stuff. This is my worst travel experience ever. If you have a policy then why are you allowing the duty free in ORD airport and not Dubai. If the duty free stopped in ORD airport I would have returned in ORD airport. Since the duty free stuffs are allowed in ORD I couldn't able to return in Dubai and I am force to pay. I am returning back to US today and restricted my baggage today to avoid any confusion but there is no cabin baggage verification or weight check happened today. Few of the economy passengers have both Cabin luggage and back pack and some of them have cabin luggage, back pack and Duty free from Dubai but no one was checking. It's looks like Emirates strictly applying this to Indians who is going to India from Dubai and try to get huge amount of fee. I still not convinced after today's flight baggage weight monitoring.

✅ Trip Verified | Athens to Newark. On a scheduled 11 hour flight from Athens, not once except with meals were refreshments offered, including water, and beverages, etc. This was a flight during daylight hours so the cabin crew did not have a reason to not offer drinks. When a person requested a beverage it was obvious that the cabin crew was annoyed with the request, even though their ads on the inflight entertainment was stressing to stay hydrated during the flight. This was just the opposite of our experience on Singapore airline where the cabin crew came through about every 30 minutes offering drinks, sandwiches, fruit and candy bars including Toblerone candy bars. I was surprised n the difference in service between Emirates and Singapore Airlines. We encountered the same lack of service from Newark to Athens as we did on the longer return trip.

✅ Trip Verified | Cape Town to Phuket via Dubai. Very robotic service. Crew indifferent. Qatar is far more professional and provide a better service. The only good thing is the entertainment on Emirates. Used Emirates because of the fare. If you get can a cheap fare then I recommend Emirates, otherwise Qatar is my preferred carrier.

✅ Trip Verified | Hyderabad to New York JFK via Dubai. Business class seating, comfort is great. But the service is appalling, really disappointed if this is the kind of service we get in Business Class - what about Economy? Skipped my dinner - mentioned the hostess that I will skip dinner but will have breakfast later and also mentioned what I like to have for breakfast. She noted it down and breakfast time came and went and I kept waiting for mine - at about the end of the breakfast hostess explains that the breakfast what I ordered is not there and I have to pick something else. Couple of things here, they decide to come and tell me that they are out when the flight is about the descent to the destination, and hostess who knew that I skipped Dinner does not bother to come and explain the same earlier. Regardless, I had lost my appetite by then - asked them to not bother, but they insisted to get a hindu meal(as that was the only thing available), but that turned out to be stale. So they were successful in making me fast during the flight. I would think twice before I fly emirates again....